Politics: Whitehall computers not ready for millennium `bomb'

Tax and benefit systems could crash and hospital life support machines fail because of a millennium computer bug for which at least a fifth of government departments are ill-prepared, it emerged yesterday. But the Cabinet minister responsible said everything was under control. Fran Abrams and Anthony Bevins examine the evidence.

The Government's own deadline for averting year 2000 computer failure has slipped by five months in the past year - and still many departments will be unable to meet it.

Where October 1998 was once set as the final date, now March 1999 is thought soon enough. Yesterday, MPs were told that only four out of five government departments would be ready even by then - but that work was "in hand" and would be done on time.

The problem has arisen because computers' internal clocks often record the date as just two digits - 97, for example - and so will click on to "00" at the millennium as if time had just gone backwards.

The Government's own computing agency has warned that failure will begin in 1999 if everything is not in place by the end of 1998. But David Clark, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was not worried.

"We have established the measure of the problem and set in hand plans which are realistic and achievable," he told MPs yesterday as he published each department's assessment of its position. Four out of five plan to be ready for the millennium by March 1999; three out of five by December 1998.

But submissions to Mr Clark show that even departments' own deadlines are already being missed. The effect on taxation, benefits and other services could be catastrophic if they continue to slip.

The Department of Social Security admitted that tens of thousands of its PCs would not be ready until August 1999. Others which were originally to have been ready by January 1998 will now not be ready until March 1999.

Mr Clark said yesterday that he was confident enough skilled labour was available to do the necessary work. But in its report, the Ministry of Defence said: "Some factors may be beyond the control of systems managers because of the scarcity of computer specialists." The Lord Chancellor's Department said it had already lost an experienced operator.

Last night Robin Guenier, the head of the Taskforce 2000 group set up by the last government to deal with the problem, said: "This complacency is completely the wrong approach. This whole subject is so serious and it is being taken with such a low degree of urgency that it is extremely worrying," he said.

He also attacked Mr Clark's assertion that the NHS had been excluded from his spending estimates because he was not responsible for it - the minister believes the problem will cost the government pounds 370m to put right but this only covers central departments.

"Someone has got to be responsible for the NHS - it employs hundreds of thousands of people and its budget is going to be absolutely enormous. Where is the money coming from?"

Malcolm Bruce, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, said Mr Clark's statement was "complacent and incomplete".

Mr Clark said he believed the Government was taking the problem seriously enough.