-TASKFORCE 2000: World's most comprehensive study shows government unprepared for Y2K impact.

M2 PRESSWIRE-11 November 1998-TASKFORCE 2000: World's most comprehensive study shows government unprepared for year 2000 date change impact (C)1994-98 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD RDATE:111198 -- Public sector problems now unavoidable Taskforce 2000 today published the world's most comprehensive and detailed analysis of a government's preparedness to deal with the Year 2000 date change. The study, sponsored by Compuware, shows that it is too late to prevent the so-called 'Millennium Bug' striking at the heart of Government. Robin Guenier, executive director of Taskforce 2000, said: "The public sector is in trouble. It has been slow in getting to grips with this and now is forced to engage in damage limitation. This study demonstrates that Government is still struggling to come to terms with the size of the task it faces. To avoid the worst of it, the Cabinet must recognise that it is facing an emergency, as the Prime Minister indicated in March." Report author, Ian Hugo, said: "My report is based on information published by the Government, it is not a detailed audit of Government systems. It is probable that a full audit of the whole of the public sector would show a much more serious situation. It is very difficult to be hopeful of a satisfactory outcome." In its role as an independent commentator and think tank, Taskforce 2000 has scrutinised official figures made public at the initiative of Dr David Clark MP whilst in Government. This scrutiny has resulted in the following findings: Edited highlights Government is still massively under budgeted for the cost impact of fixing its systems - it has already adjusted its estimates for the total public sector from UKP1 billion to UKP3 billion. However, "cost creep", as evidenced in the report, and private sector experience indicate that a comprehensive fix for the public sector would be in the region of UKP7-8 billion. Attrition or "Death by a Thousand Cuts" is now a real threat to public sector services. Major individual failures can and probably will be prevented, but this does not guarantee a successfully outcome. Taskforce 2000 believes that, at the present rate of progress, a process of attrition, where individually minor failures occur repeatedly and successively within a short space of time, handicapping normal delivery of services to a point where delivery grinds to a halt, is a likely outcome. The study reveals that all departments have left adequate action desperately late and few come close to good practice in the private sector. There is still an enormous amount of work to be done in all Departments and Agencies. For the first time, to help the public and media focus their attention, Taskforce 2000 has ranked central Government departments and agencies into four categories: good progress, low risk, medium risk and high risk. Testing of systems is crucial to a successful outcome and absorbs at least 50 per cent of required resources. All departments have inadequate testing programmes at present and time is fast running out. Inadequate testing would mean a real and unacceptable risk of systems being disrupted by major failures. There is little in the Government's published information about contingency planning. Things will go wrong and it is essential that detailed plans be put in place to deal with this. Such plans must be made public so that the private sector can adjust its plans to those of the Government. Government has so far not adopted a "change freeze". Corrected systems do not necessarily stay that way and large volumes of changes create instability in IT systems. Best practice in the private sector has implemented a freeze on additional change and overseas, the Canadian Government, for example, has stipulated that new legislation is subordinate to Year 2000 programmes. "Taskforce 2000 believes that the Government should now go further and require the wider public sector, the NHS and local authorities, to publish details of their Year 2000 planning. Also, there is a desperate need for information about the utilities," Guenier concluded. Steve Busby, European Business Director for Testing, Compuware, said: "We have sponsored this study with the aim of focusing attention on the importance of getting systems ready for the Millennium. We have only 13 months left and the situation for many in both the public and private sector is becoming critical. There is still time to dramatically speed up Y2K projects with the effective use of skills and automated tools. However, urgent action now will save a great deal of heartache later!" About Compuware Corporation Compuware has been providing testing solutions for 25 years and is the world-wide leader of the Automated Sofware Quality (ASQ) market, providing debugging, functional, load, data, process, Y2K and Euro testing solutions for mainframe, client/server and Internet environments. The breadth and depth of its experience uniquely places Compuware as a pioneer of best-practice testing concepts. Compuware is also a leading world-wide provider of application development and management products and services which help achieve stability and software quality throughout the business enterprise. The company's products have been licensed by over 11,000 organisations world-wide. The company has a staff of 8,500 including 6,000 professional services staff. Compuware has fiscal 1998 revenues of $1.14 billion, making it the fifth largest software vendor in the world. CONTACT: Rob Wilson, Brodeur A Plus Tel: +44 (0)1753 790700 e-mail: rwilson@brodeuraplus.com Robin Guenier, Taskforce 2000 Tel: +44 (0)171 562 7650 e-mail: guenier@compuserve.com *M2 COMMUNICATIONS DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR INFORMATION PROVIDED WITHIN M2 PRESSWIRE. DATA SUPPLIED BY NAMED PARTY/PARTIES.*