Firms playing risky millennium game

Y2000 Survey reveals companies are lagging behind in compliance.

Almost a third of the UK's top 1,000 companies will not havence. completed their year 2000 compliance programmes by the year's end causing themselves serious business disruption.

According to a study commissioned by law firm Dibb, Lupton & Alsop, in conjunction with Taskforce 2000, only 50 per cent of 174 companies surveyed had achieved or were near to completion of their rectification schemes, while 19 per cent had not completed the first stage of inventory preparation.

Thirty per cent were unlikely to achieve compliance on time, while a further 20 per cent were classified as borderline cases, with a reasonable chance of achieving adequate compliance.

Contingency planning has risen to the top of companies' priority list, according to the study, which found that 72 per cent of top 1,000 companies had opted for internal methods to deal with the year 2000 effects and 66 per cent had external disruption plans.

Of those with plans in place, 14 per cent had only made provisions for the millennium weekend itself, despite evidence that many problems are likely to arise outside that period.

Robin Guenier, executive director of Taskforce 2000, said the findings threw into doubt the government's assurances that big business had the millennium bug in hand.

'Three hundred of UK's largest companies are playing Russian roulette with the millennium bug. They are heading for serious disruption,' he warned.

The findings spelt bad tidings for other business groups, including the second tier of large companies and the SME sector.

'They are unlikely to be better off than big businesses,' Guenier added.

Guenier blasted the government for trivialising the year 2000 issue and failing to alert business, industry and the public about the implications of inadequate preparation.

He called on the government to take swift and decisive action to make companies aware of the extent of the problem and to develop contingency plans. 'They must mobilise their resources to detect problems and take emergency measures to minimise disruption.'

Julian Stait, a partner at Dibb, Lupton & Alsop, said large companies were also failing to focus on the regulatory risks associated with the year 2000.

While all companies would be affected by risks associated with environmental, health and safety and trading regulations, 40 per cent had failed to recognise these risks and take remedial action.

'It's very worrying that this isn't being focused on,' Stait said.

The survey follows a similar study late last year, which attracted controversy after it claimed big business' rectification programmes were behind schedule.