Taskforce counts millennium costs

Survey reveals year 2000 compliance will cost #30 billion to implement

The UK government?s millennium taskforce has put a #30 billion price tag on fixing the year 2000 problem and warned that it will take 300,000 IT staff to complete the job.

In conjunction with PA Consulting Group, Taskforce 2000 conducted a survey in 1996 of 535 IT and business directors in public and private sector companies, and found that only eight per cent of participating organisations were conducting a millennium audit. The figure only rose to nine per cent after a second survey was conducted in November 1996.

The report stated: ?Anticipated costs have risen, particularly in the private sector. We expect that as the problem is better understood, anticipated costs will continue to rise. The expected costs of achieving compliance have increased dramatically, but they are probably still understated.?

Indications are that 28 per cent of senior managers are fully aware of the problem, up from the previous 15 per cent. Twenty per cent of respondents were able to answer PA?s questions on the basis of an audit ? more than double the earlier figure. Eighty six per cent of firms believe their systems will be affected before the year 2000, up from 62 per cent.

PA acknowledged that senior management awareness was improving, but maintained there was insufficient understanding.

Overall awareness is about 93 per cent, but what is described as full awareness is very low, about 28 per cent.