Labour MP slams UK government over Y2K

Labour MP, Derek Wyatt has criticised the UK government's method of assessing departmental Y2K preparedness through self-assessment.

Wyatt told Silicon.com that the government's attempts to get an accurate picture of compliance projects doesn't go far enough. "The Minister responsible is Margaret Beckett. She put 500 pages of notes about it into the House in September. I suspect I'm the only MP who's read it, and it's rubbish. It doesn't give a proper assessment of the Y2K problem in government," he fumed.

Wyatt said that simply asking departments if they are compliant is not the best way to go about interrogating their projects. He compared the method to that used by the French Agriculture department regarding BSE in French cattle. They asked French farmers if the cattle were infected, and the farmers all said no. He claims the UK government is getting a similar response from departments about their infection by the millennium bug.

Wyatt proposed a grading system adapted from the US. "What I've found with Congressman Hunt in America, who chairs the equivalent of a select committee there, is that he has a league table of each department. For instance, it runs from A to F, and F is the Department of Transport. So every traffic light currently would not work on 1 January 2000. We need that sort of assessment here."

He's also called for a trial day to test all government systems. "If we're going to do it properly, we must have a trial day. I've asked twice in the House and twice they've said they'll look into it. But time's running out; it's time we looked into it."

The full interview with Derek Wyatt can be found in the Government Channel.