[News] Post Office Scandal -

[highflyer]

I am willing to bet that an inquiry will simply conclude that there was systemic arse-covering at the expense of innocent sub-postmasters rather than name any names. That's the problem with inquiries; they often merely tell us what we already know, whilst failing to hold anyone truly accountable and make them punishable.

Under those circumstances, the public will want the arses on a plate of the people who had the power to make meaningful changes but chose to ignore the injustice, and rightly so IMO. So that means culpable politicians who initially ignored the issue (Labour), refused to meet the sub-postmasters at all (Davey, a slopey-shouldered LibDem), handed Vennells a CBE (Johnson, seeing as no other Tory is owning that one as of yesterday). Then Vennells should be paying back some of her obscene bonuses, Fujitsu should be excluded from govt contracts until a thorough review into their business practices has been undertaken. Shady people like Adam Crozier and Michael Keegan need to be investigated too.

Now these targets are all low hanging fruit in my eyes, but I'm struggling to see how any of them being brought to heel would be a bad thing.

Accountability is like tax. It's for little people.

 

[portlock seagull]

I am willing to bet that an inquiry will simply conclude that there was systemic arse-covering at the expense of innocent sub-postmasters rather than name any names. That's the problem with inquiries; they often merely tell us what we already know, whilst failing to hold anyone truly accountable and make them punishable

This is almost certainly going to be the case sadly. It’s always ‘they’, a mysterious shape shifting entity that isn’t on the payroll seemingly!

 

[KZNSeagull]

It really won't be the programmers, testers or developers (contract or otherwise) responsible for this. To make a cock up/cover up on this scale you have to be pretty senior

Indeed. The faults were clearly being logged and someone either decided not to inform the Post Office correctly of the nature of the faults or, more likely, someone at the Post Office made the decision to carry on with the system despite of the errors. Businesses make that sort of decision every day.

 

[Seagull58]

going to be a big haul of fruit.

IMO the low-hanging fruit is the leaders and staff of Fujitsu and the PO who covered up the problems from early on, some of whom have perjured themselves in court, and all of whom have committed obstruction of justice on multiple occasions. They are criminally responsible. I very much doubt that any government officials are guilty of anything except lack of interest and listening to bad advice.

 

[beorhthelm]

They bagged them all on the back of the PO one,...

here's a problem with the public perceptions. see THPP post above, Fujitsu have been involved in govenment contracts for decades (back to 1960s as ICL). they got the PO contract because they are one of the go to IT contractors.

predict a rebrand and Fujitsu sell off at this rate. wont change the legacy organisation continuing to get gov contracts as they are one of the few with size to pitch for the them.

 

[Talby]

So many BS honours being given out and its getting worse.

Its sad its been so degraded

Needs reform and get rid of the ridiculous "E"

I am willing to bet that an inquiry will simply conclude that there was systemic arse-covering at the expense of innocent sub-postmasters rather than name any names. That's the problem with inquiries; they often merely tell us what we already know, whilst failing to hold anyone truly accountable and make them punishable.

Under those circumstances, the public will want the arses on a plate of the people who had the power to make meaningful changes but chose to ignore the injustice, and rightly so IMO. So that means culpable politicians who initially ignored the issue (Labour), refused to meet the sub-postmasters at all (Davey, a slopey-shouldered LibDem), handed Vennells a CBE (Johnson, seeing as no other Tory is owning that one as of yesterday). Then Vennells should be paying back some of her obscene bonuses, Fujitsu should be excluded from govt contracts until a thorough review into their business practices has been undertaken. Shady people like Adam Crozier and Michael Keegan need to be investigated too.

Now these targets are all low hanging fruit in my eyes, but I'm struggling to see how any of them being brought to heel would be a bad thing.

There’s anger towards ministers, top brass as the PO, Fujitsu - and rightly so. There are the system errors and cover up, then there’s the way people were pursued.

Much of the anguish at the Inquiry is about the real human impact - not only were people financially ruined they were (quite simply) treated like dirt by the legal and security teams in the PO. These were the people who interviewed them under caution, pursued them in court…even when it was apparent that Horizon was faulty.

There’s the antiquated racial classification the PO were using too. As late as 2008 their racial profiling included the term “negroid types”, along with “Chinese/Japanese types” and “dark skinned European types”.

The whole culture in the PO seems fundamentally flawed. There’s culpability.

 

[beorhthelm]

IMO the low-hanging fruit is the leaders and staff of Fujitsu and the PO who covered up the problems from early on, some of whom have perjured themselves in court, and all of whom have committed obstruction of justice on multiple occasions. They are criminally responsible. I very much doubt that any government officials are guilty of anything except lack of interest and listening to bad advice.

agree those are people really resonsible, they aren't the low fruit as not in public eye.

 

[WATFORD zero]

As low hanging fruit goes, find the person who signed off the requirement for remote unaudited access to the sub postmaster's data. Quicker than searching bug lists and and I'll bet it wasn't a techie

And the bugs aren't the problem, there's always bugs. It was the prioritisation, management and fixing of them that was the problem. And then the covering up of the management decisions from that process.

 

[Black Rod]

I’ve done quite a lot of work with Fujitsu over the years and it’s quite amusing how many people who work there previously mentioned their work on the Post Office account on their LinkedIns etc now quietly removing all trace

Interesting to note the Albion club employee briefly referenced earlier in this thread has removed his 'Post Office Investigations Manager' role from his LinkedIn at some point over the last two weeks

 

[Seagull58]

Inland Revenue used EDS as IT supplier and shortly after IR merged with Customs to become HMRC and EDS lost the contract to a consortium of Capgemini, Fujitsu & BT. Cap did software, Fujitsu did hardware & BT did comms. Accenture were also bought in selectively on some new systems.

With every new software development handover (at IR / HMRC cant speak for PO) there was a KEL (known error log) document which formed part of the project deliverables. This was reviewed and accepted by the business project director as part of sign-off. BPDs were senior heads of department, not a Vennells position, but more Van der Bogerd level.

Not all software testing is exhaustive (CAA / NATS ATC an exception) so even with a KEL there is potential for an "undocumented feature" aka a bug not yet found.

So the "list" may or may not help. Would still be nice for it to be made available ...

Fujitsu had a secret technical team working day and night accessing the system remotely to "correct" data anomalies. Fujitsu management knew very well what the bugs were.

 

[Seagull58]

agree those are people really resonsible, they aren't the low fruit as not in public eye.

Two Fujitsu staff were arrested for perjury two years ago. Two PO staff were questioned under caution two weeks ago. If the Met does their job properly they will end up with the senior people who led and signed off on the cover up.

 

[Talby]

B

Fujitsu are balls-deep in core IT systems for major government departments, including (to use the names they had when the contracts were awarded) Inland Revenue, DHSS, HMCE, as well as a huge number of local authorities. Main reason being that contracts for those systems were awarded to ICL, a British-owned computer company, who were - for that reason - on the government's list of Preferred Suppliers. Then Fujitsu acquired an 80% stake in ICL...

Balls deep!!

 

[portlock seagull]

There’s anger towards ministers, top brass as the PO, Fujitsu - and rightly so. There are the system errors and cover up, then there’s the way people were pursued.

Much of the anguish at the Inquiry is about the real human impact - not only were people financially ruined they were (quite simply) treated like dirt by the legal and security teams in the PO. These were the people who interviewed them under caution, pursued them in court…even when it was apparent that Horizon was faulty.

There’s the antiquated racial classification the PO were using too. As late as 2008 their racial profiling included the term “negroid types”, along with “Chinese/Japanese types” and “dark skinned European types”.

The whole culture in the PO seems fundamentally flawed. There’s culpability.

It’s not especially different in many more corporates. I’ve worked in and seen and experienced (not on same level or anywhere near) it. Little Hitler’s abound, and some. I much prefer smaller businesses but you still come up against with customers, especially - again - big corporates. It’s almost cult like, these people worship who they work for. Funnily enough as a layman’s topic of conversation, so many friends of mine are saying the same. It’s endemic in this country and probably globally. The stampede to the top. Was it Adam thingy who discovered 1:3 top corporate personnel have sociopathic tendancies? You don’t have to proverbially carry an axe to murder someone when you’ve dominions doing it for you I guess!

Allison Pearson of the DT has written a brilliant piece on cronyism and the PO scandal. I couldn’t agree more with it

The Post Office scandal has exposed Britain as a hotbed of cronyism and corruption

For 20 years Mr Bates waged war on a ruthless institution, but ITV’s dramatisation has finally opened people’s eyes to the cruel injustice

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Fujitsu are balls-deep in core IT systems for major government departments, including (to use the names they had when the contracts were awarded) Inland Revenue, DHSS, HMCE, as well as a huge number of local authorities. Main reason being that contracts for those systems were awarded to ICL, a British-owned computer company, who were - for that reason - on the government's list of Preferred Suppliers. Then Fujitsu acquired an 80% stake in ICL...

I posted this tweet in #70

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I posted this tweet in #70

Thanks for posting. Took this screenshot from HIGNFY, where Computer Weekly quoted a senior software developer on the Horizon system as to why it should never have been launched:

*edit* Having worked on a number of projects of similar size, if not larger, the language in that quote strikes me as completely true. In my experience, management would use every tool at their disposal (persuasion, coercion etc) to meet their project deadlines, rather than listen to the guys on the ground floor telling them the system wasn't yet in a fit state to go live

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

here's a problem with the public perceptions. see THPP post above, Fujitsu have been involved in govenment contracts for decades (back to 1960s as ICL). they got the PO contract because they are one of the go to IT contractors.

predict a rebrand and Fujitsu sell off at this rate. wont change the legacy organisation continuing to get gov contracts as they are one of the few with size to pitch for the them.

I couldn't care less about any of that. People high up at the PO lied to the postmasters and pursued malicious litigation. Someone directed this. Given the lying (which is not in dispute) there is a fair bet the same high up people at the PO knew the system was at fault and pretended that it wasn't. They need to be identified and prosecuted.

 

[Seagull58]

 

[Wardy's twin]

usually followed by some ‘high flyer’ deciding to step back, retire, follow new paths (add whatever other lame excuse you wish) and set off into the sunset with a rather nice pension or golden hand shake which is paid for from the public purse .. and incredibly then walk into some other cosy high position elsewhere.

Lord it makes you sick to your guts.

spot on - no conscience and no accountability

 

[BLOCK F]

Gareth Jenkins, architect of Post Office scandal, demands immunity

The former Fujitsu engineer's testimony about the faulty Horizon IT system was central to convictions

www.telegraph.co.uk

Interesting development…

He must be joking.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

I couldn't care less about any of that. People high up at the PO lied to the postmasters and pursued malicious litigation. Someone directed this. Given the lying (which is not in dispute) there is a fair bet the same high up people at the PO knew the system was at fault and pretended that it wasn't. They need to be identified and prosecuted.

This is what sets this apart. Many bug-ridden systems go into many different organisations but what generally happens next is a period of working together to get to the bottom of the issues. The fact that they took the stance that the system was perfect and therefore that any discrepancies were solely down to fraudulent activity by the postmasters is almost beyond comprehension. The fact that they stuck with this position for over a decade is mind-numbing. When you are given enough power and a bottomless pot of money to defend the indefensible there's nothing to stop you doing it. Those who made the decision that this would be the policy are the ones that must be rooted out.