Gosport Borough Council is being asked to meet a massive millennium wage bill to keep key staff on duty while the rest of their council colleagues are out celebrating the new century.

Unison - a union representing public sec-tor employees - has called for up to £500 for some staff required to work over the festive period.

Calls from vulnerable people who may need emergency front-line social services or urgent repairs over the millennium could go unanswered unless council bosses come up with a satisfactory pay deal.

The matter will be discussed by the policy and resources committee tomorrow. Gosport council-lors have been recommended by officers to pass the issue to the personnel sub-committee, which-meets on July 27.

The trade union is claiming that a stand-by or call out fee of £250 should be paid to staff involved on essential services and another £250 be paid to staff working or sleeping in at a borough owned care home from December 31 to January 1.

According to the union, the £500 would be on top of normal shift wages and those working on January 1 would also be entitled to a day off in lieu. The Unison claim has already been rejected at a national level, leaving each council to decide its own policy.

A spokesman for Hampshire County Council, which provides social services for Gosport, said the issue had not yet been decided by the county.

"Hampshire County Council has put in place stand-by arrangements for staff to make sure essential staff are on duty during the millennium period. The issue of extra payments is still to be considered."

The payments would be made to information technology and social services staff. But as far as the IT systems are concerned the council has been told by the district auditor that it is ahead of many other councils. It set up a group two years ago to look at the likelihood of computer systems crashing due to the predicted millennium bug.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.