11 September 1998
In a similar move, the Audit Commission is to pay its 1,300 staff early in January 2000 because it fears the change of year could send its electronic payroll system into chaos.
Speaking at a year 2000 conference in London on Wednesday, Mike Smith, the ambulance service's year 2000 project manager, said the banks would not be able to cope immediately after the dawning of the new century.
The commission's director of corporate resources, Peter Wilkinson, said: 'The Audit Commission was told by its bank that the bank was millennium compliant but when we tested the link to the bank we found that it wasn't.
'We are going to run our electronic payroll system as early in January as possible and if the electronic link to the bank doesn't work we will write cheques and just hope that the bank's central clearing system does work.'
The Audit Commission pays about £3m a month in wages.
PFsep1998
