HC Deb 04 November 1997 vol 300 cc92-3W
Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will publish the action plan, due by 1 October 1997, for resolving the computer millennium problem in her Department, its agencies and other public bodies for which she is responsible; if such was fully completed on time; and if she will make a statement. [13627]

Clare Short

Because of the extent of public interest in the issue, DFID's costed action plans, along with that of other government departments, will be reported first to Parliament after analysis by the Central Information Technology Unit (Cabinet Office) and Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency to which DFID's plans were notified in October 1997. They will be available thereafter.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when her Department, its agencies and other public bodies for which she is responsible completed the millennium computer compliance audits of systems; and if she will make a statement. [13630]

Clare Short

An audit of DFID's systems was completed in June 1997 and identified a small number of departmental systems that were not millennium compliant in addition to those corporate systems that had already been identified.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development which(a) Minister and (b) civil servant has overall responsibility for ensuring millennium computer compliance in her Department and its associated public bodies. [13631]

Clare Short

As Secretary of State I have overall responsibility. The responsible official within the Department is Mr. A. Davis, Head of the Information Systems Department.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on what funding provision has been made to accommodate the expenditure needed to resolve the computer millennium problem; and if she expects to have sufficient funding to pay for the work necessary to achieve complete millennium compliance by 1 January 2000. [13629]

Clare Short

For 1997–98 we have made provision for £145,000 consisting of £100,000 for purchasing assistance and £45,000 of departmental staff's time working on year 2000 issues. For 1998–99 provision of £65,000 has been made to cover departmental staff time testing changes. The budgets are adequate unless there are unforseen difficulties.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what is her latest estimate of the total cost of resolving the computer millennium problem in(a) her Department, (b) its agencies and (c) other public bodies for which she is responsible; if she will state in each case (i) expenditure incurred to date, (ii) expenditure planned for 1997–98, (iii) expenditure planned for 1998–99 and (iv) expenditure planned for 1999–2000; and if she will make a statement. [13628]

Clare Short

The figures of expenditure to date are not available for the corporate systems already made millennium compliant. This is because they were being transferred to a new system for resource accounting and no separate costs for staff input were kept. An estimated £10,000 of staff time establishing inventory, planning and reporting on other systems has been incurred to date.

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