Action 2000: UK's key services given all-clear

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Wednesday, October 20, 1999 Published at 07:37 GMT 08:37 UK

Key services given Y2K all-clear

It will be "business as usual" for majority of services

The much-feared millennium bug will not cause chaos across the UK's vital services, the government's Action 2000 watchdog has announced.

In its final report on whether essential services are ready to cope with the bug, the taskforce says it is confident there is no cause for concern.

The fear is that some computers or software will fail to recognise the year 2000, causing widespread chaos.

Crucial sectors from electricity, water and telecommunications to the emergency services and local authorities have all been independently assessed, with almost #20bn spent on tackling the millennium bug.

The Action 2000 report says the vast majority of companies and public sector organisations making up the UK's infrastructure have achieved a 100% blue colour-coding under its "traffic light" system - meaning it will be business as usual as the new millennium dawns.

But although essential services are not expected to face problems, some organisations have been identified as at risk from disruption.

'Confident they will cope'

Among them are seven unnamed, medium-sized financial institutions, four Northern Ireland councils and a number of transport services.

Action 2000 says it is confident they will be ready by December.

The group's chairman, Don Cruickshank, said: "The very few organisations yet to finish are under the most intense scrutiny and will not be at risk."

He said "blue" status meant a service's plans for the date change had been comprehensively investigated and tested.

The task force established the National Infrastructure Forum in 1998 to assess the threat from the millennium bug. The forum meets for the last time on Thursday.

Mr Cruickshank said no other country had matched "the breadth, scope and rigour" of assessment that it had carried out.

But he said some services, such as telecommunications, transport, finance, post and weather forecasting were also dependent on activities outside the UK.

'No slippage'

He said: "Those sectors with international links are continuing to monitor the readiness of, and collaborate with, their international partners as part of their Y2K programmes and prudent business practice."

He said the forum would continue to monitor the situation up to and beyond the New Year.

He said: "It is not enough that we have so far met the challenge. We have to ensure that there will be no slippage in the remaining weeks."

But the independent campaign group Taskforce 2000 described the report as "unsatisfactory".

Chief executive Robin Guenier said it was hard to believe that every essential service had finished and tested their systems in such a short space of time.

He called for more details to be made public.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 20, 1999

Answers

If this stands critical scrutiny, this is good news. The UK has been in he forefront, not just in terms of having started relatively early, but also because the issue has had visible and vocal leadership right from the top. It is interesting to note also that the UK is, I believe, alone in having proactive regulatory agency oversight in key infrastructure areas, including the commissioning of independent third party audits for each of the key critical public services.

But Guernier is probably right in keeping the pressure up for more detail and more openess. Complacency is a real danger. I doubt he will get much more, though. I imagine Gwynneth Flowers (the political head of Action 2000) has calculated that enough will be up and running to enable rapid recovery, workaround or fix-on-failure should stuff fail in some places. Their main aim now is probably to minimise speculative negative media coverage and public anxiety. Probably also well aware of the potential economic gains of an early declaration.

-- Unspammable (tired_of@spam.com), October 20, 1999.


Old Git, Interesting posts, thanks. I am particularly impressed that you posted BOTH of these stories on UK Y2K readiness, one negative, one more postive.

The debate period has ended. Elvis has left the building. Y2K approaches and soon, whatever it is, will be. FactFinder

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), October 20, 1999.


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