THE MILLENNIUM is a potential time-bomb and could have a drastic effect on services across Lancashire, county council bosses have warned.

And a specialist team is being set up to help tackle the problem being posed to computer technology by the approach of the year 2000.

Experts are predicting computers will not be able to cope with the date change and could fail and refuse to accept data and instructions.

The change is likely to affect every service the council provides, from education to social services and even traffic management.

A report to the council's finance sub-committee reads: "This Millennium bomb could cause major disruption to service delivery.

"The effects are not limited to information technology systems, although the major impact is likely to be in this area.

"There may also be difficulty caused to building systems, traffic systems and indeed any activity dependent upon the electronic processing of dates." A specialist project office made up of a manager and three computer experts is being set up to tackle the problem.

Their first job will to draw up a list of tasks which need to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Funds of £50,000 have already been set to one side, but the Millennium melt-down is expected to cost County Hall even more cash.

Talks are already taking place with computer suppliers and Lancashire County Council will have to invest in new software packages.

Finance chiefs are being warned to set aside cash from their budgets for next year to help deal with the problem.

Councils across the country and East Lancashire are facing a similar problem and investigating solutions.

Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Health Trust has also laid plans to avoid a computer crisis.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.