CITY of York Council is approaching its tenth anniversary as a unitary authority, yet it seems hardly a month has passed without one or more of its eight directorates "restructuring" itself.

This usually means expanding its empire or upgrading staff posts, frequently both.

Such regular exercises can hardly promote organisational stability, efficiency or morale.

The constantly-changing structure of the council's internal bureaucracy evokes little interest among ordinary residents but it should, because each re-organisation costs money, sometimes a lot of money on a continuous basis, and we have to pay for it through our ever-burgeoning rates of council tax.

So why does it happen? The inability of publicly-funded bureaucracies to restrain their addiction to creeping expansionism is endemic, but local authorities, in particular, are fruitful ground because "restructuring" is generated by senior officials from within.

While the elected members of the executive nominally have to approve such proposals they are, as part-timers, no match for the professional "Sir Humphreys" with jobs and near-autonomous fiefdoms to protect who are well able to hold sway without serious challenge.

And so it will continue until we can elect a political leadership with sufficient competence and determination to stop the rot and bring this council's costly establishment under control.

Ken Beavan,

Albemarle Road, York.

Updated: 09:53 Wednesday, April 26, 2006