As expected, several UK government departments and emergency services branches were criticized for inadequate millennium preparation by a UK Y2K awareness organization. The UK’s Ministry of Defence, Inland Revenue, Northern Ireland Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Highways Agency all have serious shortcomings in their millennium programs, according to a report compiled using information from the Cabinet Office entitled The Public Sector and the Year 2000 Problem…Crisis or Calm, published by Taskforce 2000.
The millennium plans of the Ministry of Defence are not yet completed. Currently in the final stages, the MOD expects that 95% will be finished by September, but Ian Hugo, author of the report, said that the last 5% represented a $16m project, too significant to be squashed into the final quarter.
Britain’s roads are a relatively high risk Hugo said. Apparently they still hadn’t got the inventory of embedded systems completed by the end of last year said Hugo, scorning an earlier all-clear given to the UK Highways Agency by the official UK Y2K watchdog Action 2000 at the National Infrastructure Forum last April (CI 3,645).
London’s Metropolitan Police Force is among eight forces singled out for criticism. It countered by claiming that Taskforce 2000’s figures were six months out of date, and that the Met’s critical systems will have been tested by June. Hugo said that the figures were taken from those published in April by the government.
Robin Guenier, chairman of Taskforce 2000, argued that the lack of up-to-date information was symptomatic of the failure in the wider public sector to make the process of preparation and analysis open. He said that central government’s positive record in readiness overall was in part down to the principals of frankness. Central government systems should survive the date change without serious public disruption, said Guenier.
Information on the local government authorities, which are lagging in their preparations for the millennium, is not being disclosed. So far, the only figures released on local authorities have been averages. Task Force 2000 said that this is disguising the real picture. We are entitled to know who they are and we are not being told. Hugo said. The argument for non-disclosure in the private sector of commercial sensitivity does not stand up in the same way for local government says Hugo. Where customers with water companies could simply change their supplier as a result of adverse publicity, people cannot move home quite so easily to change their local authority. Local government has a duty to make its preparations and programs open, he argued.
Taskforce 2000 has called for a moratorium on large IT contracts which destabilize millennium programs. The Inland Revenue’s computer systems are currently being updated, and its preparations are suffering. Hugo pointed to the example of the private sector, where most multinational firms are refusing to introduce new systems over the run-up to and immediate aftermath of January 1 2000.
Hugo also mentioned Action 2000’s stated aim to reveal the names of bodies which were failing to prepare, saying that the public pressure effected by that spotlight would instill greater urgency into both public and private sector programs. He warned that Don Cruickshank, Action 2000’s chairman, did not have the authority to name names, and that he might have some difficulty in publicizing laggards.
