Paula Vennells was back in Phase 5/6 of the Post Office Inquiry and now we're at Phase 7 - thread 5

Sarah Munby's evidence didn't seem that interesting to start with, rather dry, but for me it got more interesting the more it went on.

The enlightening stuff for me related to the abbreviations VFM (Value for Money) and MPM (Managing Public Money) and how these concepts influence decision-making in the Civil Service and the government.

As I interpreted her evidence, the Civil Service wanted to avoid creating a compensation scheme that gave a correct amount of compensation. This was because it would be very complicated because the subpostmasters' (SPMs) cases were very different and often very complicated, which would mean spending resources and money, and the preference was for cheap and cheerful having a blanket approach. But this meant that some SPMs would win, and some would lose. For no one to lose, this would mean that at the higher end there would be big wins. In other words, to constrain costs to some degree, it was necessary that some SPMs would be short-changed. That was in the past, maybe in 2021.

Now things are very different. Munby was asked why but she was clearly evasive. Everyone knows why, it was political pressure as a result of widespread public disgust and outrage. She went round the houses several times to deflect away from the real reason why the "political head of steam" built up. A programme on the telly.

Sarah Munby: posh, clever, precise, highly technocratic. Had a career in management consultancy before being placed at a very senior role in the Civil Service where she had responsibility for a number of entities (arm's length bodies) including Post Office.

There were lots of interesting details but I'll just mention one here. Recaldin said that he'd had a 30+ year career with a glowing record but in the relatively short time he'd been at Post Office he'd been investigated 5 times. No details about what they were about but that organisation is a total mess of dysfunction.

I don't have the energy to give any depth to a summary of Recaldin's evidence but: (1) what a mess, and (2) ultimately, the non-stated aim of Post Office is to get supostmasters to settle for £75000 even if that's much lower than they should be entitled to because they just cannot bearing fighting any longer because that could continue for years with a very uncertain outcome.

The Inquiry resumes today. The schedule for this week:

Monday 4 November
Simon Recaldin – Remediation Unit Director at Post Office Ltd

Tuesday 5 November
Sarah Munby – former Permanent Secretary at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Wednesday 6 November (9:30am start)
The Rt. Hon. Kevin Hollinrake MP – former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Business and Trade; former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Carl Creswell – Director of Post Office Policy and Business Engagement in the Department for Business and Trade

Thursday 7 November
Lorna Gratton – Shareholder Non-Executive Director of Post Office Ltd; UK Government Investments Official
Sir Alex Chisholm KCB – former Chief Operating Officer and Permanent Secretary for the Cabinet Office

Friday 8 November
The Rt. Hon. Gareth Thomas MP – Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Business and Trade
Charles Donald – Chief Executive Officer of UK Government Investments

I'm most interested in Tuesday and Thursday. I think the interactions between the Civil Servants and UKGI is one of the "untold stories" in the scandal.

This is from the latest Nick Wallis email:

"The Inquiry is taking a two-week break before reconvening on 4 November. There will be eight more days of evidence over two weeks and then a break until closing statements, which I believe are going to be on 18/19 December, but I may have got that wrong.
All the best guesses about when Sir Wyn Williams will deliver his report after that seem to be between three and six months. I would be astounded if he gets it out before the end of March, but he might want to deliver it before the summer break. That is simply a guess."

I'm surprised at the idea of a (presumably huge) report arriving in the first half of next year but I'd be thrilled to have it as my Summer reading.

This has been foreshadowed by some of the discussion here about Post Office not being a problem that can be solved by a series of new senior executive teams, each failing in its own way:

Ministers are exploring plans to hand ownership of the Post Office to thousands of sub-postmasters across Britain in an historic shake-up at the 364 year-old institution.

Sky News has learnt that the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has asked BCG, the management consultancy, to examine options for mutualising the Post Office.

https://news.sky.com/story/whitehall-to-deliver-plan-to-mutualise-crisis-hit-post-office-13236313

The big question is whether the government will continue to fund it to, at the very least, enable Post Office to pay for a replacement for Horizon that is reliable and fit for purpose. Without it, a future government is going to be presented with Post Office in the midst a catastrophic failure that will need to be rescued.

... and a subpostmaster, walk into a bar.

There's been a game of musical chairs in the timetable.

Simon Recaldin, Remediation Unit Director at Post Office, didn't appear this week and will instead by appearing on Monday 4 November. I think that was the date scheduled for Charles Donald, Chief Executive Officer of UK Government Investments, but now he'll be appearing on Friday 8 November. In this shuffle Kemi Badenoch was moved from Wednesday 6 November to Monday 11 November.

There might be some other changes.

I do smirk whenever I hear reference to someone being a "criminal lawyer" in Post Office.

What is clear was that he was appointed General Counsel at a time when all of the bad decisions had led to the complete and utter mess and dysfunction and he's been dealing with the fall-out ever since. (There's the question as to how effectively he's been at that and how honest he's been.)

That was a somewhat gentle cross-examination by Blake. Maybe the Inquiry sees him as a fall-guy to some extent.

If I've got this right, in the wake of the Common Issues Judgment in 2019, the top of Post Office, reeling in shock, decided the legal advice that had taken them to that point was deficient and they moved to get the really big guns in and appointed Herbert Smith Freehills. MacLeod saw this as effectively making her redundant so she left and Foat was asked to step up from a Legal Director role to General Counsel.

So he did get to the top spot during which the catastrophe was still unfolding.

According to Foat, everything that happened that the Inquiry is interested in was Jane MacLeod's responsibility, and she didn't share information or decision-making with him. I wonder whether the Inquiry is watching this non-evidence and thinking that they should have made a strong attempt to drag MacLeod into giving evidence.