Mr Bates Vs The Post Office

PVO_Dave

bertie said:

I worked for ICL / FJ for over 35 years,  I left 3 years ago,  and those of us that had no dealings with the Horizon project (ie 95% of the company) were (media aside) completely unaware of the seriousness this at the time

There were certainly no corporate wide internal comms from HR / legal people about what could  / couldn't be said, certainly "no company line" as has been mentioned  - not for those outside of that project anyway (as there usually are in legal/contractual issues which as with most large IT companies, there are going to be)

It was quite a horrible shock as things unwound in the press/media.  

I - and a lot of former colleagues -  feel quite ashamed, where once we were quite proud of the company we worked for, even   still even now with no real understanding of what went on both internally and between FJ and the PO.  

Having left the company,  and while investigations I believe are still going on -  I literally have no insight and TBH dont want to 

@digitalscream ;;
Lee - remove this if you feel the need

Where abouts did you work @bertie ? I was at STE09 for around 8 years from 1998

Kittyfrisk

bertie said:

I worked for ICL / FJ for over 35 years,  I left 3 years ago,  and those of us that had no dealings with the Horizon project (ie 95% of the company) were (media aside) completely unaware of the seriousness this at the time

There were certainly no corporate wide internal comms from HR / legal people about what could  / couldn't be said, certainly "no company line" as has been mentioned  - not for those outside of that project anyway (as there usually are in legal/contractual issues which as with most large IT companies, there are going to be)

It was quite a horrible shock as things unwound in the press/media.  

I - and a lot of former colleagues -  feel quite ashamed, where once we were quite proud of the company we worked for, even   still even now with no real understanding of what went on both internally and between FJ and the PO.  

Having left the company,  and while investigations I believe are still going on -  I literally have no insight and TBH dont want to 

@digitalscream ;;
Lee - remove this if you feel the need

From what I heard, I very much doubt that the PO let Fujitsu actually know what was going wrong.
The PO management culture of control & information opacity was total & toxic.

bertie

@PVO_Dave ;;

I was home based,  but was BRS06  -  Systems Architect, part of Mick Andrews Enterprise Management design team in what was I guess in 98 Power of 4 ?   Had quite a few colleagues in STE,  Tony Wootton,  Doug Pearson,  John Pinch, June Gaynor, Clinton Kilner.................

m_c

I'm only on episode 3, however has it ever been made public what actually went wrong to cause the discrepancies?

ManWithoutSkin

My dad was a postmaster for around 20 years until he retired in 2017.

Anytime the software calculated that he was down on his weekly balance he made up the shortfall from his own back pocket. He must have put in thousands over the years. When the issues with Horizon became apparent, he had no way to show how much money of his own money he had put in and no way to claim it back.  There must be so many others in the same position too.

JEM

Kittyfrisk said:

From what I heard, I very much doubt that the PO let Fujitsu actually know what was going wrong.
The PO management culture of control & information opacity was total & toxic.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/23/post_office_scandal_fujitsu_convictions_quashed/

"The Court of Appeal found that Fujitsu's involvement was just as deep as the Post Office's."

Kittyfrisk

JEM said:

Kittyfrisk said:

From what I heard, I very much doubt that the PO let Fujitsu actually know what was going wrong.
The PO management culture of control & information opacity was total & toxic.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/23/post_office_scandal_fujitsu_convictions_quashed/

"The Court of Appeal found that Fujitsu's involvement was just as deep as the Post Office's."

I stand corrected, they should have been prosecuted along with Vennells at al.

Misterg

m_c said:

I'm only on episode 3, however has it ever been made public what actually went wrong to cause the discrepancies?

It's in episode 4, but not in huge detail.

<<Spoiler>>

.

.

.

.

 There were bugs in the system that caused transactions to get lost and Fujitsu techs were accessing the live system through the sub-postmasters' accounts and changing numbers on a completely uncontrolled, unaudited basis.

ETA: Technical description here

https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2021/07/15/what-went-wrong-with-horizon-learning-from-the-post-office-trial/

bertie

Kittyfrisk said:

JEM said:

Kittyfrisk said:

From what I heard, I very much doubt that the PO let Fujitsu actually know what was going wrong.
The PO management culture of control & information opacity was total & toxic.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/23/post_office_scandal_fujitsu_convictions_quashed/

"The Court of Appeal found that Fujitsu's involvement was just as deep as the Post Office's."

I stand corrected, they should have been prosecuted along with Vennells at al.

I can only agree,  very glad to  have left before the main news of investigations and the time that article was written

m_c

Misterg said:

ETA: Technical description here

https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2021/07/15/what-went-wrong-with-horizon-learning-from-the-post-office-trial/

Thanks for that link, I've only read it (I'll try and watch the video later), but it amazes me the lack of logging, and that Fujitsu employees could log in and carry out alterations with no logging.

I can only hope that the ongoing public enquiry reveals who knew what and when. Going by what was written in that article, it appears the Post Office were initially unaware of what Fujitsu were doing, so you can't really blame them for the initial prosecutions, but at some point somebody should have been questioning what was happening.

DefaultM

So is a correct summary that all over the country there were hundreds of Post Offices where the figures didn't line up. They're all using the same computer system, employees are having issues with it, but instead of looking in to that they concluded it was some kind of conspiracy where all those unrelated employees were stealing? 

Erm... Why? How does that make any sense? Did they find evidence they were in contact or anything? 

stickyfiddle

DefaultM said:

So is a correct summary that all over the country there were hundreds of Post Offices where the figures didn't line up. They're all using the same computer system, employees are having issues with it, but instead of looking in to that they concluded it was some kind of conspiracy where all those unrelated employees were stealing? 

Erm... Why? How does that make any sense? Did they find evidence they were in contact or anything? 

It doesn't make any sense other than apparently being a good representation of the lack of competence across the majority of senior positions in the UK 

DefaultM

It's ITV so I can't watch it, but that's probably for the best. I got wound up watching that Pepsi fighter jet documentary on Netflix, and that was just silly in comparison to this.

Misterg

m_c said:

Thanks for that link, I've only read it (I'll try and watch the video later),

Not sure that the video is worth it, TBH. It's very general, without the specific examples that are in the text.

With you on the Public Enquiry thing - surely someone needs to be held to account!

DonnyMac

I find it astonishing, given what we already know about this scandal, that Fujitsu continue to 'win' govt IT contracts.

p90fool

One thing I haven't heard discussed is whether Horizon made errors in BOTH directions, or did it only create shortfalls?

If it's all one way then there are serious implications about a possible intent to defraud postmasters rather than just being a cover up of a fault. 

rze99

I'm avoiding because it would make me too angry. I don't need any help with that in January.

Kittyfrisk

DonnyMac said:

I find it typical, given what we already know about this scandal, that Fujitsu continue to 'win' govt IT contracts.

FTFY 

Blackjack

Absolutely excellant! We binge watched it all in one evening.  Shocking and scandalous, those poor people! Was all the more interesting to us as a lot of it was filmed very locally to us.

stickyfiddle

p90fool said:

One thing I haven't heard discussed is whether Horizon made errors in BOTH directions, or did it only create shortfalls?

If it's all one way then there are serious implications about a possible intent to defraud postmasters rather than just being a cover up of a fault. 

My understanding is there were errors in the software thet meant transactions were not recorded properly. It's possible that some of those transactions could have been refunds rather than revenues, but given the nature of the PO business it's likely that the vast majority would have been missing revenue transactions