§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the conclusions of Taskforce 2000 published on 11 November in respect of his Department's most recent quarterly return on plans and progress towards Year 2000 readiness.[60211]
§ Mr. Fatchett[holding answer 18 November 1998]: We are committed to having all its business-critical IT systems year 2000 compliant before the millennium. The report that the FCO will have only "minimal functionality" for some period around the turn of the century is false.
The FCO had long planned to replace its numerous and outdated office automation systems by year 2000 compliant systems. It still aims to replace as many as possible before the year 2000. In addition, as a contingency measure, the FCO has completed work to make its existing main strategic office automation system year 2000 compliant and will have replacements or acceptable workarounds in place for all other business-critical systems. The FCO's Internal Audit Departments has now begun an audit of the millennium programme.
The FC0's Global Telecommunications PH contract is still under negotiation. But the FCO has signed an `Instruction to Proceed' to enable replacement of non-compliant telephone switches to proceed while negotiations continue.
The results of the next quarterly review will be announced shortly to the House and copies of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's latest quarterly return will be placed in the Libraries of the House and published on the Internet.