Presented by Robert Clark MP		www.robertclark.net

Funds devoted to Y2K problem

The Victorian Government has targeted $115 million to safeguard Human Services agencies from the Year 2000 "Millennium Bug".

Agencies include hospitals, ambulance services, services working with families, the aged, disabled, youth and people with a mental illness, and the Human Services Department.

The Government expects hospitals and other essential services to be able to maintain essential services during the risk period.

The Government’s Y2K strategy requires all government services to be Y2K ready and supported with back-up systems to counter any failures.

The strategy also includes an information campaign to alert the private sector to the millennium bug’s potential effects on business continuity.

The Government is investing $115 million in Human Services agencies’ Y2K programs — and a total of $480 million across government — to ensure that the delivery of vital health-care services is not jeopardised.

Agencies within the Human Services Department’s reporting arrangements had on average completed 92% of their Y2K readiness programs and were more than 75% through their contingency planning as at 30 April, according to the Government’s latest public disclosure report.

(News Release, Office of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, May 31, 1999)