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To: John Mansfield who wrote (15723)	4/30/1998 6:11:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 31646

VERY INTERESTING!! 'David Atkinson M.P Visits U.S regarding year 2000 ' David Atkinson (Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East) has just returned from a fact finding visit to the United States regarding the Year 2000 computer and embedded systems problem. His visit came two weeks after President Clinton established a Tsar and Tsarina by Executive order to raise awareness about the year 2000 problem. They are tasked with ensuring that the Federal Government gets it's own house in order, and then raising awareness of the problem in the international community. In his executive order of 4th February the President offered a layman's description of the Year 2000 Problem "Because of a design feature in many electronic systems, a large number of activities in the public and private sectors could be at risk beginning in the year 2000. Some computer systems and other electronic devices will misinterpret the year "00 as 1900, rather than 2000. Unless appropriate action is taken, this flaw known as the y2k problem, can cause systems that support those functions to compute erroneously or simply not run. Minimising the y2k problem will require a major technological and managerial effort, and it is critical that the United States Government do its part in addressing the challenge. Mr Atkinson was the first Member of Parliament to raise the year 2000 issue in Parliament and remains in the foreground in drawing attention to it. For three days Mr Atkinson, accompanied by a year 2000 expert in the field of Embedded systems, Gary Easterbrook of Embedded Systems Solutions Providers (ESSP Ltd), met with the key politicians and project managers involved in the Federal Governments Year 2000 projects. Four themes emerged as the week progressed Concerns regarding rest of world Recesion inevitable outcome of Year 2000 Feeling that contingency planning should start now Customers inundating suppliers in a tsunami of panic Concerns regarding rest of world Everyone that we met with was very concerned that the rest of the world was not acting as decisively as the United States in dealing with this problem. Most commentators believed, for example, that the United Kingdom was between a year and a year and a half behind the U.S. Given the general acceptance that most Federal Agencies and many U.S. Blue Chip organisations in the private sector can only fix mission critical systems, where did that leave the rest of the international community in the race against time? The consensus was that there would be very severe impact both to technology and the economy. Recesion inevitable outcome of the Year 2000 Following this first conclusion, it was striking that so many people would talk about recession being the inevitable outcome of the year 2000. Feeling that contingency planning should start now Most people felt that contingency planning for the private and public sector should start now. Customers inundating suppliers in a tsunami of panic Fear was raised that in the area of Embedded Systems in particular, customers would inundate the suppliers of electronic equipment and microchips with requests for information, and they would be unable to cope. Gary Easterbrook spoke of a tsunami of panic. The vendors will be deluged. They will not have the people to open the post on a Monday morning. U.S. commentator Peter Pittaway said, The chip fairy will not turn up. Diary On Monday 23rd February Mr David Atkinson and Gary Easterbrook held a meeting with Kathy Adams running the Social Security Administrations year 2000 project. Recognised as being one of the most advanced Federal projects Kathy Adams said "At social security we started a long time ago. We had a system break which was the best thing we could have happened to us. We keep track of peoples lives-births, marriages, deaths so we are particularly date intensive. At SSA we put out 50 million payments a month. Half of those recipients would be in poverty if they didn't have them. Typically they take a nanosecond to turn them into cash David Atkinson So if you're dead they are dead? Kathy Adams "That's right.We have renovated almost all of our software.We spent 6 months developing a test plan. People have underestimated the amount of time that testing would take. I would be extremely nervous if I were not into testing right now. Staff of Senator James Inhofe reported to Mr Atkinson that the Senator was dismayed at the Administrations lack of interest. The Senator is head of the Readiness Committee.Dan Groeshen, National Defence Fellow said "Readiness means moving fuel in times of crisis- moving soup and bullets. There is lots of concern with air traffic control systems-some of them still have tubes in. Tony Valletta running the project at the Department of Defence (possibly the largest project in the world) last week invited "our closest allies to a meeting about the year 2000 problem. He told Mr Atkinson that the MOD and representatives from Australia, New New Zealand, Canada and France had been invited. The DOD has identified 28000 applications of which 3000 are mission critical. Mr Valletta said "We want to set the standard for international co-operation. Us (DOD) working with your MOD. Banks working with banks. There are huge logistical problems, however. My Navy is all over the world. It's deployed. How do you go in there, fix the problem when they are in an operational scenario. Mr Valletta says "We have found embedded chips in our smart buildings. A lot of our medical equipment has embedded chips. He went on to stress that his concern was not in the area of weaponry "Our weapons systems are not a big problem. The support equipment is a problem. Bombs will not fall out of the sky. Sons and daughters will be safe. Frank Gaffney Director of The Center For Security Policy, a Washington D.C. "Think Tank, advised Mr Atkinson "Most people who are affected by this are unaware of the problem Mr Gaffney was asked why he was particularly critical of Vice President Al Gore. "This issue is not sexy. It has the potential to be his undoing. Tony Blair is very well positioned to raise the awareness of this issue Mr Atkinson had a further meeting with the newly appointed Tsarina of the Year 2000 Conversion Council, Sally Katzen. Through her boss, Mr John Koskinen, she reports directly in to President Clinton. She reported that the Council's first job was to get their own house in order, focusing on the departments that were most behind. Included in this category were the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Resources, Transport and Energy. The Federal Government does not intend ensuring that consumer's personal goods (fire alarms VCR's and so on) will work in the year 2000. The last meeting of the week took place in Congress between the 2 Republican politicians most concerned with the year 2000, Steve Horn and Connie Morella, And Mr Atkinson and Gary Easterbrook of ESSP. Steve Horn reported that the Federal Bank was very active, but one smaller bank was punitively closed down for several days because it was not working on its year 2000 problem. Earlier in the year Congressman Horn had a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev who had recommended that an association of political leaders address this problem. The congressman went on to suggest that it might be a good idea in the U.K. to hold a royal Commission. Mr Atkinson reminded him of Harold Wilson's words Royal Commissions takes minutes and lasts years! Mr Horn explained how he was scoring the Government Agencies A to F as you would in a school report. (See attached). At this point his technical aid, Bob Ellaway commented. My job is trying to make the disaster smaller. The reality is that even for the mission critical applications they will not be fixed until the year 2007 or 2009. essp.co.uk