To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (1) what estimate the Government made of the proportion of UK companies which took steps to prepare for the millennium date change; (290687)

[holding answer 9 September 2009]: The risk to the UK economy from the millennium bug was judged to lie predominantly with the 250,000 SME companies in the UK. The primary aim of the Action 2000 programme was therefore to communicate to this diverse group, and this strategy resulted in an overall readiness rate for the SME sector of 86 per cent.

This information is contained in a publication presented to Parliament in April 2000 entitled ‘Modernising Government in Action: Realising the Benefits of Y2K’ (Cm 4703), which also reviewed the Action 2000 programme more generally, in the context of learning lessons for future initiatives.