A mainframe computer central to North Yorkshire police operations has been found to have no back-up if it fails.

External auditors of the force have found no contingency plans in place to back it up if the computer crashes.

A spokesman for the auditors said: "We believe that this represents a significant risk as operational systems, such as communications, rely on the mainframe as well as support systems such as finance."

The discovery was made in an annual independent study of the force's finances, which also discovered possible problems facing the county's police as it moves into the new Millennium.

The force has also been criticised for failing to disclose information to auditors which it is legally bound to do.

Police spokesman Tony Lidgate said the mainframe computer had never caused major problems, but plans were in place to change the system.

He said: "As far as anyone can remember the longest period that the computer has been down is half a day, which isn't really a major problem. Work continues as normal, but is logged on paper.

"We are getting a new computer about April next year, and we are buying a spare computer so if the main one goes down we go straight into the other one."

The audit report, carried out over 115 days, found that certain systems were not Millennium compliant when the study was made.

The auditor's spokesman said: "We noted that in assessing the year 2000 issue, the authority did not identify the main finance system as a business critical system. Testing for compliance of the system had not been completed.

"While management do not anticipate any problems, we believe that control may be significantly affected by the loss of the finance system, and view this work as a priority," he said.

"We cannot, therefore, provide any assurance that the year 2000 issue has been properly identified and addressed."

Mr Lidgate said: "Everything that is vital to the service has already been made Millennium compliant, and everything else is on course to be done before the Millennium."

The police force also received criticism for failing to give performance indicators on the amount of time uniformed officers spent in public, the public's and victims' views of policing and the speed that letters are answered.

The information, which is legally required, was also absent from the 1997/98 audit and the force was reminded at the time that publishing the information was a legal duty.

The auditor's spokesman said: "We remind members that they have a statutory duty to produce these performance indicators and strongly recommend they ensure the force produces them."

Police say the figures will be produced by March 2000.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.