UK ACTION 2000
'Don Cruickshank ACTION 2000 Chairman holding Millennium Bug Campaign logo.
Millennium bug campaign chief launches 100-week manifesto.
Good morning and welcome. We're here, as Tony Blair's words remind us, because - as of next week - there are just 100 weeks until the Millennium. That's a deadline that looms large in all our lives. I'm here to talk about what we're going to do about it.
People who have followed my career as director general of Oftel have remarked that I have been uncharacteristically quiet on the Millennium bug issue since I was appointed chairman of Action 2000. Those who know me well, however, know that I am not given to shooting from the hip. I view action as being far more powerful than words.
So my first decision was to take the presentational risk of taking time to understand properly the nature and scale of the millennium bug problem in the private sector.
That has meant battling with the rhetoric and hype; absorbing copious reports - both public and company confidential; and most importantly, talking to Chairmen, Chief Executives and IT directors in large companies right across the commercial spectrum.
From all of that, I've sorted out the role of Action 2000. Its tasks go beyond co-ordinating action and contingency planning in the private sector. I have identified six areas where we will play a leadership role:
1.Offering direct support for small and medium sized businesses 2.Collaborating with large companies to encourage them to support smaller companies
3.Ensuring similar support is available to the public sector
1.Advising Government on where its resources could be best directed to help the private sector tackle the problem
2.Contributing to contingency planning across the private and public sectors
3.Participating in the international dimension
I am going to touch on all of those, but the main thrust of today is the Millennium Bug Campaign, a seven-point plan of help and advice for businesses. It specifically addresses the first two areas I have identified - direct support for SMEs and collaboration with large companies.
This word `bug' captures the issue for me. It describes an invasive, hidden malaise, that, as often as not, needs expert attention. So our logo depicts a fairly aggressive bug against the internationally recognised warning symbol, a yellow triangle.
This is the public face of the Millennium Bug Campaign. It will be used to badge our initiatives and be available to companies or organisations who support our objectives.
We have also produced a `Millennium Safe' logo. We will encourage businesses to use it when they feel confident enough about their Millennium Bug projects or products to say in public that they are Year 2000 compliant. Businesses will, I stress, be choosing to use the `Millennium Safe' logo - it does not mean a product or supplier is Government approved.
My studies show that our larger companies - broadly that means quoted companies - should in due course be confident enough to adopt this logo thanks to the responsible way in which they are dealing with the problem.
The reason for my confidence is the enormous amount of time and money they have already spent on projects to reduce their exposure to the Millennium Bug to acceptable levels. Most have a target date - the end of this year - to be safe. Most are sufficiently far through their project to have confidence they'll reduce their risk to an acceptable level.
This is, in part, a response to the pressure they have come under from institutional investors, auditors, regulators (including myself at Oftel) as well as customers, insurance companies and legal advisers. However, it is mainly because they have recognised, early, that this is a critical business issue - and have acted accordingly.
This has led me to conclude that that large businesses can resolve the Millennium Bug problem to acceptable levels. However, that is not the end of my interest in large companies.
Those that are taking the problem seriously are now focusing on their contingency plans. in the event of disruption - for there will be some.
The message for large companies from the Millennium Bug Campaign - particularly in sectors of the economy which are central to our economic and social life such as telecoms, financial services, electricity generation, transport and broadcasting - is: get down to the detailed contingency planning covering the weeks leading up to and after the Millennium. This is an extremely important role for Government. These sectors of the economy are, in the main, regulated and licensed. They are therefore relatively easy to influence. A major task for us in the latter part of 1998 will be a vigorous check of their contingency plans.
What's next? Most large companies - increasingly confident of resolving their own problems - recognise that the networked, interdependent nature of the economy is such that the Millennium Bug is more of a shared issue than previously thought. My motto, and increasingly their motto, is "your Millennium Bug problem is mine".
So the state of preparedness of small and medium sized enterprises in this networked economy is of real concern. This is especially important where they form part of complex supply chains and are engaged in electronic commerce up and down that supply chain.
A small firm in the chain could be as important as a household name when it comes to delivering those crucial services I just highlighted.
We are talking to a number of the UK's best-known and most important companies - ones which understand and support this `networked economy' theme - about how they, with or without support from us, can help SMEs. These are a few. Initiatives include Midland Bank's sponsorship of a conference for SMEs; Coca-Cola, Unilever, Safeway and 30 leading companies in the grocery and distributive trades financing a programme to help the other 1400 companies in the sector. IBM and ICL are providing valued staff for our campaign.
So: the Millennium Bug Campaign will seek to harness the resources of large companies in support of small and medium sized companies generally.
I am confident that many more leading businesses will back this campaign and bring their experience and influence to bear.
Faced with pressure to act, what do smaller businesses do? That's where the Millennium Bug Campaign's main effort over the next six months will be concentrated. On supporting small and medium sized companies by helping them to understand the problem, get to grips with it and resolve it as soon as possible. There is still time for them to act, but they must start doing so now.
To this end, we are offering direct support for SMEs to help them translate their awareness of the problem into action. Our role is to offer help, advice and guidance, to highlight best practice and point people towards information that will help them.
We have set up a hotline which will handle enquiries from callers wanting to know about the Bug, how it impacts them and what they can do to minimise their exposure to it. We have also set up a Web site .
We have published a 12-page guidebook - with a foreword from the Prime Minister - and seven fact sheets.
The guidebook will be sent to everyone who calls the hotline, together with the relevant fact sheets to handle their questions. Everything can be read electronically on the Web site. The fact sheets cover:
Best practice.Questions and.answers.Suppliers.Skills.Interest groups.Legal issues and Embedded systems. More will follow.
The web site will have links to other organisations so that people wanting help can find it by visiting the Millennium Bug Campaign's Web site.
Another initiative is BugNet , which will help the hundreds of interest groups, industry bodies and Government groups get together to share information with each other and pass on help.
I am also pleased to announce that another of my tasks is bearing fruit: advising how Government can better use its existing powers and programmes.. Two immediate examples are:
Via the Department for Education and Employment, Training & Enterprise Councils will increase skills training to meet the Millennium Bug challenge
Via the DTI, involving the Business Link network - including Business Connects in Wales and Business Shops in Scotland - and offering SMEs an `MOT' style test for their computers to see whether they are Millennium compliant.
The service, developed by the National Computing Centre and called ComplY2k, will provide companies with a detailed assessment of their exposure to the Bug and what they can do to sort it out. The Business Links are also being encouraged to alert SMEs in their area about the hotline, guidebook and Web site.
That, together with our `Millennium Safe' challenge, is our seven-point plan of help and advice for small and medium businesses.
Moving on from SME support and back to the wider picture.
Last month I was asked to advise government on what lessons the public sector could learn from the private sector. There are three roles the Millennium Bug Campaign will play in support of Government and other public sector efforts to resolve this problem.
First, we can make sure that the support we offer to businesses is also available to such public sector bodies as NHS trusts, GP practices, schools.
Second, we will pass on the experiences of large companies to Government. Large companies have a valuable depth of understanding of the rigour and attention to detail necessary to deal with the problem.
And third, the whole economy needs the contingency planning rigour that will be applied in the private sector. The view of most people is that most things are public services. They don't distinguish between telecoms, the electricity grid, financial services, air traffic control and the NHS. A total system approach to contingency planning will be necessary. Action 2000 will be at the heart of that.
Lastly, it is self-evident that the Millennium Bug problem is not confined to the UK. Just as at a company level "your Millennium Bug problem is mine" applies, so it does at an international level.We will be participating in the government's effort to help tackle this internationally as, in Europe and part of the UK's presidency of the EU and elsewhere via various international bodies such as the ITU and grouping such as G8.
That is what we are about. That is what we're going to do. I do not know how widespread the problem is going to be come 31 December 1999. I do not know how much it is going to cost. I do not want to get involved in "what if" scenarios.
What I and the Millennium Bug Campaign are going to do is ensure that Government plays its appropriate role in the resolution of the problem.
So: to summarise what we will be doing, as well as providing direct help for SMEs, in the coming year.
collaborating with large companies making sure our advice is available to the public sector advising Government concentrating on contingency planning in the private and public sectors increasing our international profile
As Mr Blair says, we cannot underestimate the scale of the problem or the task ahead. However, I am confident we know what needs to be done and are taking the right steps towards getting it done.
I'm sure you'll have questions now, and, with my Director Ian Eddison, I'll be happy to take them and talk to you individually later on.
Thank you.
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