Don Cruickshank, chairman of Action 2000, the UK government’s official body dealing with the Year 2000 issue, presented a confident face yesterday reporting its latest assessment on millennial readiness. Representatives from the regulators of water, oil, gas, electricity and telecommunications as well as the financial world painted a picture of diligence and preparedness. Action 2000 has grouped these six sectors into the first tranche of invaluable infrastructure. The transport and health services make it into the second and third tier. Cruickshank explained that companies were divided into three colors: blue signifies no substantive risks of material disruption; amber companies are defined as being on course for blue status in the appropriate timescale; red represented planning insufficient to reach the blue level. According to Action 2000, the six sectors on the platform are at differing stages of compliance. In the electricity sector, 46% of companies are blue, 52% amber and 2% red. In gas supply, 85% is already blue and just 15% amber, while 100% of water and sewerage companies are amber, as are their colleagues in telecoms and oil and gas production. The financial sector gave no percentages, but suggested that clearing houses and stock exchanges are in the blue zone, while most other companies are somewhere between blue and amber. Only a handful of institutions, which the country’s Financial Services Association declined to name, are still red.
