The Emperor’s New Computers: Y2K (Re)Visited

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Abstract
In order to deal with the threat of Y2K (the Millennium Bug) the UK Government directed an uncreative, resource‐heavy, centralized operation with standardized reporting requirements. The project impacted almost all government systems, from the critical to the mundane. The government’s position was made worse by administrative changes that it had initiated in the 1980s and 1990s that had created a much larger network of delivery partners while at the same time hollowing out IT expertise within the civil service. With little regulation in place, the government was vulnerable to IT opportunists who recognized the financial gains that Y2K offered. An alarmist media also exacerbated the problem. The paper ends by offering some observations regarding the government’s management of IT and how this might be improved to allow the government to pursue its Modernization Agenda.Things did not go right by accident.Cabinet Office Press Release on Y2K, inBeckett 2000a

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