Letter: Feeding The Bug

Sir: Apparently, there are not enough IT skills available to address the "millennium bug" in good time. The response of the European Union is to rush into the single currency in 1999. This compounds the demand on IT resources, even in non-EMU states such as the UK.

Now our government proposes to introduce its latest punishment of the prudent, the Individual Savings Account, in 1999. This will create still more demands for IT system amendments on financial services providers and on government departments. Gordon Brown's timing of this innovation is stupid and irresponsible.

M J Knight

Slough, Berkshire