Thread by @nickwallis

Here are the Prosecution support pars in the agreement between ICL, PO and DSS re Horizon:

'4.1.8 The Contractor shall ensure that all relevant information produced by the POCL Service Infrastructure at the request of POCL shall be evidentially admissible...

..
and capable of certification in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland)
Order 1989 and equivalent legislation covering Scotland...

... [R829 para 1)
4.1.9 At the direction of POL, audit trail and other information necessary to support
live investigations and prosecutions shall be retained for the duration of the
investigation and prosecution irrespective of the normal retention period of that
information...

[R829 para 2]'

JB asks if any specific facility was built into H for doing this.

TO says that that is what the system did in generating data and the PO had full sight of this. They had the oppo to say it didn't. They never did.

TO design of the system was to ensure accuracy, but then to identify errors, manage, fix and report on them. If the system satisfied all that - it should have been sufficient for prosecution purposes, but I don't know the law on that.

Martyn Bennet would have had this...

... responsibility, we also had an in-house lawyer...

JB name?

TO Warren Spencer... my colleagues looked into this at that sort of legal level and satisfied themselves

[Warren Spencer later sued Fujitsu claiming it won the Horizon contract by misrepresenting itself...

computerweekly.com/feature/Fujits… !]

TO in terms of satisfying ourselves that our Prosecution Support obligations would have been met, that would have fallen to Martyn Bennett and Warren Spencer as it was a risk item.

JB why is it a risk item?

TO Martyn had responsibility for risk, audit and assurance.

JB are you aware of any policy, protocol or other doc which carries the Prosecution Support contractual obligation into effect at a practical level?

TO No.

JB did yo know Gareth Jenkins

TO know of him, don't recall ever having dealings with him.

JB what was his role?

TO Can't remember, his name has come up, but I don't recall his name ever being on any PinICLs or AIs. He was support group.

JB why was he selected to give...

... evidence as a witness for Horizon.

TO when I left Terry Austin was still there, but by the time a lot of this happened he was. a senior person

JB are you are aware of any incident where Fujitsu charged the PO for audit data when it was required for a prosecution?

TO No

JB because it would have been in breach of your obligation re the Prosecution Support

TO yes and because it would have been morally wrong to do so too

JB brings up an Acceptance Incident Form. It is a serious, serious error in Horizon observed on 19 July 1999 - weeks before the system is rolled out. The error is not categorised on the AI form.

TO agrees it is a "showstopper" - next few tweets will be the description of...

... the incident:

'New Description: AS contravention/Data integrity - derived cash account wont equal to the electronic cash
account. Incidents (TIP 821, 822, 846, 855, 856, 857, 858, 859, 864, 965, 866, $68, 869, 870, 873, 874) have been
raised by TIP...

... in respect of all transactions that constitute a cash account have not been received by TIP or when electronic cash accounts received where transactions that have been conducted and received by TIP are missing...

... from the respective cash account lines. These issues have come to light when comparing a TIP derived cash account with the electronic cash account sent by Pathway. Not all instances of similar occurrences have been logged by TIP...

... as the physical resource to check each occurrence of a difference within the derived versus the electronic is not
available. It was expected that this facility would by now be comparing like with like. This is very significant....

... Missing transactions and missing ash account line entries cause reconciliation failures within POCL, back end /systems and error resolution is invoked. The cash account produced by the Organisational Unit in these instances...

... (must be in doubt and is not a fair reflection of the business undertaken at cash Organisational Unit. A subpostmasier may be asked to bring to account an error, but the error was produced...

.... via system failure rather than
human failure. Many boars of investigation at both the front end and back: end bave taken place to help resolve
these problems, The bencfits assigned to POCL back end system in rèspect of an automated...

... cash account are being questioned.'

TO repeats it is a show stopper and needs to be sorted. He is taken to ICL's response in which ICL say...

... they accept the problem exists, but argue about the severity - would it genuinely affect the accounting integrity as it currently exists.

TO says this is wrong, and he is not excusing it, but it is an early conversation and this was eventually raised as a high level AI.

JB if you were being prosecuted - you'd want to know about this document wouldn't you?

TO very likely. you'd have to look at it in detail before mounting a prosecution at what had actually happened and what had gone wrong.

Over the last hour I've been trying and failing to do two things at once - which is publish the second Clarke advice and pay attention to the inquiry. I managed to do the first - read it here:

postofficescandal.uk/post/the-shred…

Now I am going to listen back to the inquiry...

... youtube video at double speed (when it appears) whilst everyone is having lunch.

The inquiry reconvenes with more evidence from Tony Oppenheim, former Fujitsu Commercial and Finance Director at 2pm.

Okay we are close to resuming for the afternoon session of the #PostOfficeInquiry - watch it here:

https://twitter.com/PostOffInquiry/status/1585253647520243714

We have resumed after lunch - we're looking at the agreed rollout of Horizon per branch from August 1999 onwards.

Jason Beer KC (JB) is asking questions of former Fujitsu exec Tony Oppenheim (TO).

JB points out the rollout was agreed before the integrity of the system was...

... proved.

TO agrees roll out was too aggressive. But says the wheels were set in motion well before the July 1999 codified agreement.

JB wasn't this a recipe for disaster - rolling out a system that wasn't ready

TO if it wasn't ready we wouldn't have rolled it out and wouldn't have been allowed to.

TO we thought we were in a good place to increase sample size and get more feedback

JB was this increasing sample size or was rollout already happening

TO sample size

JB you say in your WS that once DSS had dropped out, PO and Fujitsu were incentivised to move as fast as possible with rollout.
Bearing in mind - tight timetable and financial pressure do you think the interests of Subpostmasters were suborned from the forefront of F's mind?

[F= Fujitsu, SPM = Subpostmaster, H = Horizon, PO = Post Office]

TO No. We wanted to get this right.

[Please note I am summarising or paraphrasing what is being said. Nothing is a direct quote unless it is in "direct quotes"]

We go back to minutes of an acceptance workshop which we first heard about last week. The workshops deal with Acceptance Incidents (AI). This one is chaired by Peter Copping who gave evidence last Friday.

JB notes there is a data integrity issue raised in one AI

Workshop minutes:

PO says rollout should not commence until data integrity has been assured.... National Rollout (NRO) resumption criteria should reduce to 0.6% error rate in branches rather than Fujitsu's preferred 1.5% error rate

JB asked why F wanted a 1.5% error rate
TO doesn't know

The workshop minute says TO notes "re the error rate criterion, the Cash Account does not reconcile and is attributable to an error in the POCL domain"

POCL = Post Office Counters Ltd = PO

I realise we are very much in the weeds of this scandal now. It is necessary work for the purposes of the inquiry, but sometimes the job of a reporter is to monitor something so you don't have to.

In short, H went live with lots of bugs and errors. There were lots...

... of lengthy negotiations about which ones were so important they should stop rollout from happening and those which could be fixed on the fly. I think Tony Oppenheim has accepted the rollout was rushed (or more accurately, the schedule was "too aggressive")

But it comes back to the fact that the SPMs did not have a seat at the table. Neither PO or F wanted the system to fail or fall over, but providing they could do enough to stop that happening, it seems the rest was up for grabs. All the risk then falls on the SPMs.

I am intrigued why TO thought problems reconciling the cash account was a PO problem and not an F problem. Hopefully one of the barristers representing the SPMs will ask about that as JB didn't mention it.

Ah - it's possible because TIP was a PO system rather than a F system...

JB and TO are discussing the triple check data integrity controls which was brought in to monitor the wayward balances...

JB asks why basic a very basic validation app of this nature didn't exist before...

... rollout.

TO says it's a fair question. There was an early version which existed from June 99 but it wasn't a contractual requirement essentially it got missed.

JB says the triple check would only report imbalances, but it couldn't identify the root cause.
TO agrees, but says that when flagged there was a protocol for digging into what caused the problem.

JB second limited was that the new software only focused on transactions...

... between the counter and TIP.

TO agree principle of what you are saying.

Chris Jacobs for 153 SPMs asking questions.

TO is taken to a quote from the CEO PO on 26 Feb 2001 in which he tells MPs Horizon "has been a success". Jacobs asks if there was a disconnect here in reality.

TO partially agrees but says your clients were held to account...

... for things they didn't do.

CJ what did SPMs know about the potential for all these shortfalls that were unexplained

TO can't answer that - I would turn it round and say why didn't PO and F note the feedback from SPMs better.

CJ goes to Pathway perceived risks and PO risks in TO's WS - they list training, ISDM comms, hardware etc
Our clients say the training they received was ineffective and significant problems when the equipment was installed... do you agree training and equipment risks...

... were not adequately mitigated.

TO agrees with both but particularly on training. 2.5 training exercise, plus 1.5 days extra for each SPM. Very complex system, a complete change in business practice... was it enough. No.

Flora Page now asking TO about remote access - ie capacity for to go into accounts and make changes and the extent PO knew about that. Goes to a 2000 doc which explains PO's contractual right to audit Horizon data...

... the doc states that audit function in ICL would provide data that can be shared with the PO and which the PO would be entitled to rely on.

Same document notes an upcoming audit of F's 3rd line support/SSC (where whistleblower Richard Roll used to work)...

and states... "this is a particularly sensitive area of Customer Services with unprecendented access to live systems for support purposes. Previous audits have identified potential control weaknesses which management declare have been addressed."

TO I would not have been unduly alarmed by this in July 2000 as these are areas we should be looking at.

FP I don't seek to suggest otherwise. This is talking about a planned audit - I haven't been able to find the result of the audit, but assuming the audit took place...

... the PO could have relied on that audit.

TO don't know. wasn't responsible for this. It was Martyn Bennett's area. We wouldn't necessarily give it to PO. We would probably produce if asked, to be honest.

FP you accept H data was not infallible
TO said taht all along
FP and that the PO should not have prosecuted on the basis it was
TO would I hacve done it? Not without digging really deep.
FP do you accept it was in F"s commercial interests for PO to prosecute on H basis?
TO No.

... not at all. Quite apart from the moral side of things... not even commercially. F was not that kind of organisation. Not in my day.

Tim Moloney for another group of SPMs (TM).
TM was the Benefit card cancellation an existential threat to the PO?
TO yes.

TM why?
TO if the Benefits Agency switched to depositing benefits direct to bank accounts rather than over a PO counter it would have dropped footfall into POs by a third.

TM without automation (ie Horizon) there would be no alternative revenue streams that the existential threat would become a reality.
TO yes
TM was it obvious to you around 1999/2000 that the PO would be under real commercial pressure if Horizon did not proceed at pace.
TO yes.

TM finishes. Sir Wyn (WW) asks a q of TO.
WW accept from me as I have reliable evidence to this effect that investigations of SPMs, relying on H data began almost immediately... so if, in the year 2000, I was in the PO and had to investigate if an SPM had committed a crime...

... I'd have to go to someone in F to get relevant info. I might be an investigator or a PO lawyer. Who would tell me Fujitsu might hold and how I might use it.
TO don't know, but will give you my best shot. The info is all ops info - so head of services Steve Muchow...

... but services is a support function. My working assumption is that anything to do with prosecutions, audit, would be Martyn Bennett. And he might go to Steve Muchow.

WW so my investigation begins with Mr Bennett.
TO I would put the q to him. I might be wrong....

TO - it might have got from their prosecution team to Keith Baines as the sort of interface to me contractually... but one of that group of people would know.

WW Ok. It may be that in that same period there would have been a request for a person to give evidence from F about...

... the reliability of H. Who would do that, given it would be expert evidnce, but also based to a degree on factual evidence. You'd need someone who could do both. Who would make that decision.

TO ask John Bennett that question. Pretty sure something that major would go...

... to him. But I don't recall discussing it with him... it never came up - it never came across my desk - I can't believe I would have forgotten this if it had done so during my tenure.

WW q's end

The inquiry day is over. Back at 10m tomorrow.

You can watch/read all of today's evidence (and indeed all of the evidence from the inquiry) on the inquiry website:

postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/evidence

the live videos disappear then reappear as archive recordings after an hour or so. The daily transcripts are usually up...

up by the next morning.

If you want to receive regular round ups of everything going on via my email newsletter, please do subscribe (by donation) here:

postofficescandal.uk/donate/

Rebecca and I are about to put together...

... another podcast looking at the last couple of days' evidence - the subscriptions to the newsletter also fund this venture too - previous episodes here:

postofficescandal.uk/podcast/

I'll try to cobble together a blog post before I conk out, too. Don't forget to read what happened when an external barrister learned the PO might be shredding documents: postofficescandal.uk

Laters.

#PostOfficeScandal
#PostOfficeInquiry

@threadreaderapp unroll pls