BURNLEY town hall staff on call during the Millennium Bug crisis period will receive up to £200-a-day - plus four times their normal pay if they are actually called out to work.

The standby payment is part of a deal which councillors are expected to approve tomorrow.

The whole plan - involving everything from engineers and computer employees to maintenance and leisure staff - is expected to cost the town £25,000.

Burnley is the first East Lancashire council to declare its special payments for the millennium period, with officers ready to deal with problems ranging from council computer breakdowns to dealing with responsibilities under the Major Peacetime Emergency Plan, in case of more widespread civil problems.

The Burnley deal involves staff on standby between 8pm on Dec 31 to 8pm on Jan 1 receiving a lump sum of £200.

This will include the first two hours of any call out after which workers will get four times normal pay.

There will be £100 payments for stand-by staff for each of the following two days.

They will receive three times the normal hourly rate after the first two hours.

A report to the personnel committee says the final bill could vary either way depending on whether or not there is any major incident to deal with.

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