Paula Vennells is history but now at the Post Office Inquiry is Fujitsu distinguished engineer Gareth Jenkins - thread 4

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5094266-paula-vennells-was-done-the-other-week-the-post-office-inquiry-is-now-questioning-associates-and-others-thread-3

When the hearings are going on, live-streaming can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/featured

All of the previous hearings can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/videos

But she was in charge. The buck does kind of stop with her.

It's worth remembering, and is something The Times article glossed over, that the vast majority of prosecutions of subpostmasters occurred before Vennells became CEO. She was at the Post Office before that but not in a role where the legal function was below her.

Vennells main contribution was her part in the cover up, and terrible decision-making around the group legal action.

I wasn't able to watch live today, but started to watch it now.

First up. Gavin Ellison from YouGov.
They sent out a survey to current SPMR and SPMR who are in the Horizon Shortfall Scheme.

They are going through what questions they asked, and the results from the survey.

I can't begin to tell you how much I LOVE this sort of thing. Love stats and surveys.
This is right up my street.

Question: in the last 12 months have you experienced problems with Horizon

Answer: 94% said yes and listed the problems they have had. For example, frozen screens, pin pad issues loss of connection etc
Only 6% have not had problems with Horizon.

97% of the SPMR have had to contact the helpline in the last 12 months. 52% of these have had to call on a monthly basis.

76% because of a technical issue
46% of a balancing issue.

You know the current Post Office Senior leaders keep saying the current Horizon system is much better. But the stats from this survey is not looking good.
The Horizon system doesnt seem to be currently working any better than it did between 2000-2015.

60% of SPMR are still not getting data to be able to review and dispute transaction corrections, in the last 12 months.

Oh goodness, the overall results are really bad:
is the Post Office:
...A good place to work: only 24% agree
..Trustworthy: only 17% agree
...professional managed: only 15% agree

General themes from the feedback on the survey are:
..feelings of being undervalued
..current issues with the system

Sorry, I should h ave said the results I've been posting are from the survey with the current SPMRs.

Next is the survey results from the Historical SPMRs.

That was quite quick. Essentially the survey results are not good.

Next Saf Ismail, a SPMR from 2010 and who was on the PO Board as an non executive director from 2021 to now.
(Although he is currently suspended as he is under investigation fior something)

The current PO CEO Nick Read does not like SPMR being on the board.

Overall, it seems the non executives don't have much say in decision making and the executives tend to ignore any opinions.

There we have it!
Confirmation that PO staff who were involved in the prosecution of SPMR are now working in the Remediation Unit (the team who decide what compensation the SPMRs ger)

They are showing a Terms of Reference document for a Project to deal with this.
Conflict of interest is something the PO clearly struggle with.

Surely it it is glaring obvious that you can't have people who were directly involved in the worst miscarriage of justice, being moved to a team to decide how much compensation the victim should receive?

Is it just me? why aren't the PO getting it?

So, the PO only started to look into which employees on the Remediation Unit have a conflict of interest, when this Inquiry started.

Saf Ismail is very eloquent.

They are showing the Boards meeting minutes from April 2024 and the discussion about PO staff who had not been suspended and are now working on the Remediation Unit.

It's interesting, because the PO are now being wary of suspending or sacking employees. In fact are now taking the stance that it is their duty to protect thier employees.

Which is all well and good. But the whole reason they are in the mess is because they didn't protect the SPMR and suspended/ended thier contracts without due care.

This is really interesting. I would recommend watching Saf Ismail.

They are showing how the PO are planning on investigating the PO staff who were involved in this scandal, who still work for the PO.
Essentially, Saf Ismail is saying its very disappointing how this is being handled and there is no transparency of what is happening to the board.
And they are certainly not dealing with it quick enough.

It looks like the people involved will be encouraged to take voluntary redundancy packages.

Oof, they are going back over Gary Thomas (one of the investigators) horrible email where he called the JFSA, "the Justice of Theiving Sub Postmasters".

Gary Thomas still works at the PO.
They are asking Saf Ismail if he thinks it is right Gary still works at the PO.

The current CEO Nick Read has a new word: "untouchables"

This is used describe individuals who were involved in the prosecution of SPMRs, but still work at the Post Office.

No matter how many complaints or allegations there are against these individuals, they are "untouchable".

Saf Ismails's opinion is there still is a culture in the Post Office and the Boatd that the SPMR are criminals and not to be trusted.

This is all from notes taken in January 2024.
So nothing has changed.

This is quite shocking, but not surprising.
Watching some of the investigators and lawyers from Phase 4, 5 and 6, they made it very loud and clear they still think the SPMR are a bunch of crooks.

There is so much going on, it's hard to keep up.

This Phase 7 has kicked off with a bang.
If anyone thought this Phase would be boring, I can assure you it's not.

Currently, the Post Office is just one big massive shit show.
This Phase is about what is currently happening at the PO, 2021 to 2024, and nothing is better.
The emails are just as bad as ever.

When Sir Alan Bates said in his witness testimony, that the whole PO needs to be shut down and restarted or sold off to Amazon, he is absolutely right.

Just based off today's evidence,I think the current CEO is going to be in for a very rough ride when he is due to give evidence in October.

Perhaps, just as bad as Paula Vennells.

He will be giving evidence for 3 days. Based on the emails snd board minutes so far, it's not going to be good for Nick.

Oh for god sake, the in-fighting is horrendous and now anti-semetic comments towards Elliot Jacobs.

I highly recommend watching tomorrow.
Saf Ismail will finish his evidence.
Then its Elliot Jocobs, the other SPMR non exec director on the board.

This is truly awful.

Sorry @nauticant , I have filled up the thread with my ramblings.
We may need a new thread soon.

But hopefully some people have found my ramblings useful.

I've enjoyed your commentary and since I was hoping to start a new thread, you've brought that closer. I need to remember to leave off the opinion poll for the next thread.

I'm pleased you and others have found it useful.

There was a lot more, but I don't fully understand it fur the moment. Hopefully tomorrow will clear it up further.

What Saf was saying us the is likely to be another "fake shortfall" problem soon.

The PO are getting rid of Horizon and replacing it with a brand new system.
In prepetatiin, the current investigators (although theh are not called investigators anymore), are going into PO and physically entering cash amounts into Horizon for stamps.
Sometime tellimg the SPMR, sometimes not.
But this is creating fake shortfalls.

I don't quite fully understand the ins and outs of this.

Anyway, I've done the next thread now in case I forget to do it tomorrow:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5172311-paula-vennells-was-back-in-phase-56-of-the-post-office-inquiry-and-now-were-at-phase-7-thread-5