Tuesday 14th August 2001 5:53pm Software error costs Scottish Power £10m Sometimes mistakes cost you...millions

Scottish Power is blaming a software error for a £10m whole in its finances.

Reporting quarterly results today, the utility group and owner of Demon Internet admitted that a software error in its power trading system cost an estimated £10m.

Scottish Power said the cock-up happened soon after automated trading began in the UK in March.

A spokesman for Scottish Power said: "It was the software that balances the accounts, basically it got the pluses and minuses round the wrong way. It was a purely internal problem."

Profits for the quarter, which ended 30 June, were down £105.2m from £137.6m for the same period last year.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 15, 2001