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Mr Bates vs the Post Office

vacuum_tubes said:
Similar to what I heard 'off the record' but it was more along the lines of 'this is a flagship govt project, we won't accept any delays, it is going live when we said it would'
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That may be so. However it then hinges on if F+PO reported the actual problems or hid them away. What they *should* have done is say "It has problems so we need to take them into account". And NOT prosecute the Postmasters, but accept that corrections were needed when things "didn't add up". The BBC Radio series has been better on this than the ITV series. Contains a lot of details which ITV omitted. But I don't know if it still available in full, or at all. Should check. I gipped copies as it appeared.
 
Seeker_UK said:
I agree with most of that except the issue is not with the process but with those in positions of authority to select the right option. IME, that's as you state, about being seen to be careful with public finance, but also not having any real appreciation (or care) for the risk the cheapest option often carries.
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I was trying to avoid saying that Civil Servants hate scrutiny or making any decision that pushes against the norm (as criticism of public sector gets jumped on here).

But they do :)

I used to call the agency exec board 'the borg' 🤖 as none of them would make an individual decision or opinion 🤣
 
Part of the problem with the Civil Service, IME, is the ‘need’ to carry out ministers’ wishes. There’s a cultural unwillingness to push back on unreasonable ministerial demands, because of the deeply ingrained belief that the CS is there to serve government, which is elected by the will of the people.
 
Seeker_UK said:
I agree with most of that except the issue is not with the process but with those in positions of authority to select the right option. IME, that's as you state, about being seen to be careful with public finance, but also not having any real appreciation (or care) for the risk the cheapest option often carries.
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Its also in the nature of the spending review and budget process the Treasury and Parliament use to control delegated spending. Investment funding and the window to spend it in, is limited by that 3 year horizon.

Business cases tend to have an optimism bias to gain approval and navigate those boundaries.
 
“Simon Blagden, Chairman of Fujitsu, donated £376,000 to the Conservatives

So they made him a member of UKHSA which advises the Department of Health on hundreds of Billions of spending, a nice VIP lane for Fujitsu.

They now get £10bn a year in Government contracts.”
 
The Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan’s husband is Michael Keegan.
Michael Keegan is currently employed as a crown representative to the Cabinet Office, managing cross-government relationships with BAE Systems as a strategic supplier to the Government, having previously been Head of Fujitsu UK and Ireland during the latter part of its involvement with the Post Office scandal.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Part of the problem with the Civil Service, IME, is the ‘need’ to carry out ministers’ wishes.
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Civil Servants are guilty of that as well, years ago I was doing a project for an exec agency and the Chief Exec was due to retire but his CBE was partially dependant on a high profile system going live.

It was supposed to be fully resilient and redundant across two data centres. We were instructed to go live without testing the data centre failover element in order to hit the target go live date.

raysablade said:
Its also in the nature of the spending review and budget process the Treasury and Parliament use to control delegated spending. Investment funding and the window to spend it in, is limited by that 3 year horizon.

Business cases tend to have an optimism bias to gain approval and navigate those boundaries.
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Not so much there days, under the CCS framework you can select a 5yr contract and extend that by 1+1 for a total 7yr term before you have to back out to market.

Certain cases can be excluded as well now by the Cab Office, have done a few solutions where the delivery is complex and bespoke so the suppliers are limited and we were granted approval for 10yr+ contracts and spend forecasts.

TBF those were fairly unique and the norm/preference is for 3yr contracts via the framework
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Part of the problem with the Civil Service, IME, is the ‘need’ to carry out ministers’ wishes. There’s a cultural unwillingness to push back on unreasonable ministerial demands, because of the deeply ingrained belief that the CS is there to serve government, which is elected by the will of the people.
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I wouldn't say it was a cultural unwillingness so much as a constitutional imperative. The rise in the number of ministerial directions in recent years has borne witness to that.

There is also some dismal satisfaction in giving ministers exactly what they ask for. Especially when they have been provided comprehensive evidence as to why it is a bad idea. It is always worth remembering that in party policy delivery terms Chris Grayling's career was one of untrammelled success.
 
I've been pointed to this detailed description of the issues elsewhere. It includes this gem;

"However, when one then considers the subsequent passages of the 4th experts statement, it can be seen how far from this joint agreed (and technically justified) position the Horizon system was. The logging of Privileged User Access (in PUA logs) commenced in October 2009. For the period 2009 to 2015 – obviously a 6 year period – these logs only displayed the fact that a Privileged User had logged on or off, “but not what actions they had taken whilst the Privileged User was logged in”. Therefore the actions they were taking when logged in were being neither recorded nor audited. All that could be seen is they were logged in. Further, it has already been seen that the number of users with the relevant privileges was not, in my judgment, restricted to a minimum. Further, the use of the Transaction Correction Tool cannot be seen in these logs. Yet further, the experts are agreed that at all times, any privileged user access log only shows what tables of BRDB were accessed for a very small minority of accesses."​

I would say "wow", but then it occurs to me that there may have been no PU logging at all prior to 2009.
 
Rodrat said:
Nadim actually played himself. I would like to see prosecutions for those who perverted the cause of justice or conspired to do so. My dad was a post master owning a small newsagents. Fortunately he retired a few years before Horizon. Absolute scandal. I hope Vennells is no longer doing the god bit.
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I have a faith and it’s important to me.
Sadly Vennells isn’t the first ( or the last ) to have double standards.
If someone has a position in the church, they are assumed to also hold on the the basic tenets of that organisation.
 
From 2002 to 2005, Vennells trained for Holy Orders on the St Albans and Oxford Ministry Course.[7] She was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 2005 and as a priest in 2006.[7] She has served as a non-stipendiary minister at the Church of St Owen, Bromham, in the Diocese of St Albans.[7][17] She was reported to have 'stepped back' from duties in 2021.[18] Her membership of the Church of England Ethical Investment Advisory Group was also terminated.[19]

[33] Crockford's Clerical Directory shows that from the same year Vennells no longer holds either a licence or PTO, meaning she no longer has authority to preach or to practise as a priest.[34]

en.wikipedia.org

Paula Vennells - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
There is far Too much concentration on Vennells and her meaningless gong.
Far better to concentrate on a full criminal investigation on all involved at management level of the PO and Fujitsu and calling to account all involved in the conspiracy.
 
Bob McC said:
There is far Too much concentration on Vennells and her meaningless gong.
Far better to concentrate on a full criminal investigation on all involved at management level of the PO and Fujitsu and calling to account all involved in the conspiracy.
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While agreeing with you on the focus, I see no reason why those aspects should be mutually exclusive. I see the Tories have blamed the government in 2010, well the LD half anyway. It’s as if they haven’t been involved at all.
 
Exactly.
So the process must remain focussed and not get derailed by arguing about returning gongs, or who was where and when.
They are already trying to hang out Ed Davey to dry with the Times leading the campaign.
Luckily Private Eye will keep the pressure on and not get side tracked.
 
Latest news: Apparently the Gov is considering pushing something through parliament to quash all the convictions in one swoop. It was on BBC Breakfast this morning.
 
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