Post Office Horizon scandal

[cromwell]

One thing has stuck out in my mind recently re the Post Office scandal.

How did they manage to end up with such a bad financial IT system?

Financial applications were just about the first to be computerised back in the 1960's (and maybe before). Things like payroll and accounts.
Given that the industry has years of experience in producing financial applications that work, how did the Post Office end up with one that didn't?

[Workingman]

The Post Office was a world leader in computing and (inter)networking from the 1930s, long before computers and the internet were "things". It did everything in-house because it knew its business(es) inside and out. It all worked!

Then along came something called eCommerce with its shiny new toys such as Oracle and SAP and all their "experts" with their Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and the PO bought into the hype.

Then it all started to go wrong.

[saundra]

Its really heart breaking for all the victims in the case
Heads should roll and victims be fully compensated but money won't bring justice to those who died

[medsec222]

I totally agree Saunda. What amount of money could possibly compensate those who have been imprisoned, accused of theft, faced breakdown of their marriage, suicides, and having to live in the community after being branded by the Post Office as a liar and a thief. Those who were in charge during this the debacle should not be allowed to resign with a golden handshake and a pension pot, as is usually the case.

[Workingman]

That would be Paula Vennells CBE - Con-trickster of the British Empire.

She was in charge of the Horizon disaster then went on to be CEO of the Post Office and got a £400.000 pay off when she left - despite the Horizon report. She later made about £7m in salary and bonuses, most notably from an NHS trust.

She should be in jail.

[cruiser2]

Have seen were one one postmaster is going to lose about 90% of his compenstaion to HMRC and VAT. This is over £300,000.

Give with one hand ut take back double with the other.

[Workingman]

If you are talking about Mr Duff his compensation came to £330,893. The payout made him liable for £71,533 in income tax and £251,359 under the bankruptcy recovery system - SOP. VAT never entered the situation. The result is that he only got £8,001 of the compensation - so far.

However, there is an appeal against the bankruptcy repayment as most of it is to the Post Office for its costs in (illegally) prosecuting him.

He should not have had to go through this and the PO should forego its bankruptcy claim... or be forced to. He should also be able to claim for the loss of about £100k when his post office was sold in a fire sale for just £25k - a fifth of what it was worth at the time. I would be asking for interest on my loss to be paid.

[Suff]

The more I hear about internal government workings, the more I shake my head.

My brother worked for ICL before they were bought by Fujitsu. As a UK company with mainframe hardware and a consultancy arm, they were a preferred supplier to HMG.

From what I heard the combination of an "entitled" supplier and "entitled" civil servants was about as toxic as you could get. I was glad to hear about Palantir getting the NHS contract. For those who didn't see, the Palantir CEO was on a talk when he basically said if you come from a university which practises DEI and employs faculty based on DEI who create courses to further their bias; "we don't want you"!

Big statement from a very confident CEO. Probably butt heads with the NHS but it's about time.

[cruiser2]

Have been watching the inquiry on TV this afternon. The PO investigator was obviously making pre-planned replies so he would not incriminate
himself. Was always trying to blame the lawers and other persons. Said he didn't know about the problems with Horizon.

Would not admit saying things to postmasters which they had given in evidence to their lawers.

[cromwell]

This doesn't get any better.
A Labour Spad (special Adviser) to the Blair government warned the PM in 1998 about the problems with the horizon system, saying that "in the long-run" it would "prove unsatisfactory" and described it as "hugely expensive, inflexible, inappropriate and possibly unreliable".
To be fair to Tony Blair he asked for a "clear view" on the systems reliablility, and got it from Peter Mandelson.
Full story here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67941495

Also it turns out that the post office investigators were on a bonus for successful prosecutions of sub postmasters. Like bounty hunters, only these people were innocent.

Cruiser, that man did not come over well at all. A nasty piece of work, imo.