The year 2000--computer compliance : second report. Volume II, Minutes of evidence and appendices / Science and Technology Committee.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology.
- Date:
- 1998
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: The year 2000--computer compliance : second report. Volume II, Minutes of evidence and appendices / Science and Technology Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
17/256 (page 7)
![[Mr Atkinson Cont] they should treat this in each company to look at them as a going concern, and we believe that that kind of action will certainly affect every private company in the land. Dr Gibson 12. Let us turn now to government departments themselves. In your experience, is enough being done; what is still to be done; what should be done; and are they going to miss their deadlines for the year 2000? (Mr Guenier) Taskforce 2000’s brief is to address the private sector, so we are not directly involved with the public sector at all. I think I have to say that. I do sit on the Government’s Year 2000 Action Group, which is the public sector group, and I feel that in some ways my view about it is something which is somewhat confidential. I do not know how I should deal with it at this meeting but my general view is as follows, that it seems to me that government departments are lagging behind best practice in the private sector, and I stress best practice, the companies of the sort I mentioned a moment ago. On the other hand, all the government departments do require a programme. They have a teannin place. They do attend regular meetings. They have milestones set for them and they do have access to the CCSA’s very expert help. So on the one hand they are lagging behind the best practice but, on the other hand, there is a much more universal approach in the public sector than in the private, because the worst practice in the private sector is disastrous and that certainly is not true in the public sector. So that is a very general answer. Chairman 13. That is the private sector, is it? (Mr Guenier) | am sorry, my comment was that in the private sector the worst practice in the private sector is considerably worse than the worst practice in the public sector. The point I wanted to make is that there is a uniformity of approach in the public sector which does not exist in the private sector. However, the best practice in the private sector is light years ahead, in my judgment, than in the public sector. If you look at large departments of state, who have an enormous job to do, they are far behind some of the big corporations who are getting on with this, and what disturbs me, Mr Chairman, is that when I talk, as 1do commonly, to the boards of directors of large companies who are getting on with it—I want to stress that—they commonly say to me that they are very concerned they may not be able to complete the job on time, for various reasons. They will probably complete the main part of the job on time but they are very concerned about their supply chains, they are concerned about third parties and so on, and if a company which has been dealing with it for two years is concerned and they are two years ahead, as I suggest, of some government departments, it does worry me that those government departments have severe problems, because plainly they have the same problems as large companies. 14. Is the secrecy you feel uncomfortable divulging about which departments are really behind? (Mr Guenier) I could not answer that. I do not have that information. Chairman 15. Mr Wirszycz, I think you wanted to make a supplementary answer, did you? (Mr Wirszycz) Yes, briefly. My day job is that I represent a great many companies who provide services to Government and I believe that the message that is coming through to me is that very few government departments are actually issuing contracts for help, and the message may come back that they are clearly doing it themselves. I see in my contact that there is not a great deal of urgency in the matter. That is something that does concern me both as a citizen and as someone who consumes Government services. I believe this is so important, especially in parts of Government where there is not centralised control and where effectively a great many decisions are taken by a great many people, in the health service, police service, local authorities. That dispersal of authority, I think, means that you are going to find a great deal of variety in how things are done and I think that that urgency could, indeed, provide leadership for the rest of the economy if it existed. Mr Jones 16. If I could just tag on to the end of the public sector problem, we heard the estimate that the cost to the clearing banks was half a billion pounds to put this problem right. Do you have any feel for what the cost is going to be to Government? (Mr Guenier) Yes. I have been quoted as saying it will cost the British economy £31 billion to resolve this matter. That is not actually what I said. I will come to your question in a moment. What I said was that if you take the best practice in the private sector and extrapolate that across the whole of the economy, youcome to a figure of £31 billion, broadly speaking. The fact is that is completely impossible. The IT industry does not have the resources to meet that and we do not have the time to spend it even if they did. But if that were true, the figure in the public sector would be of the order of about 6, in my judgment. Now the same applies to that 6. There is not the resource and there is not the time to spend it. That, of course, is a matter of very serious concern because it means that items are not going to be properly done and that, therefore, underlines the point I made a moment ago about the need for radical prioritisation. It is essential we do not try and do everything and we do do the things that really matter. That requires very senior level leadership, in my judgment. My guess—and it is a pure guess—is that the proper bill for the public sector would be in the region of £34 or £4 billion, which, incidentally, is not unadjacent to the figure which the Labour Party were suggesting in opposition. Therefore, I think the present estimates that we are now seeing are likely to be far too low and if you relate those estimates to, for example, the clearing banks, then it does not really](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32218692_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
