Mikebart
Established Member
Have a look at Royal Mail and ParcelForce and what’s going on there.
Have a look at Wilco
Have a look at HS2
Have a look at the NHS
British gas
Integrity is a big word in all ( tied in with money)
Breaking News: Post Office Scandal
- Thread starter Vulcan
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Have a look at Wilco
Have a look at HS2
Have a look at the NHS
British gas
Integrity is a big word in all ( tied in with money)
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
I haven't seen a really detailed technical teardown of the bugs with the Horizon system, but from what I have read it clearly wasn't fit for purpose (to a degree that adequate testing would have shown the problems). It appears there also was no checking for obviously (erroneous) duplicated transactions; which I'd consider basic stuff.
From the point of view of "them in charge" I have a tiny bit of sympathy; if supposedly competent technical people (the Horizon vendor) is telling you there are no problems then you have to work on the assumption that discrepancies must be down to individual (post master) errors or fraud.
The issues come with the scale; the sheer number of different Post Office sites affected should have flagged up that something wasn't right, and the burying of the independent experts findings (referenced earlier in this thread) definitely smacks of cover up.
From the point of view of "them in charge" I have a tiny bit of sympathy; if supposedly competent technical people (the Horizon vendor) is telling you there are no problems then you have to work on the assumption that discrepancies must be down to individual (post master) errors or fraud.
The issues come with the scale; the sheer number of different Post Office sites affected should have flagged up that something wasn't right, and the burying of the independent experts findings (referenced earlier in this thread) definitely smacks of cover up.
Same clowns, different circus.
Precisely.
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Are you referring to the Legacy bill or GFA?
It was a point made by someone else, I didn't look into it. Legacy Bill, I would think.
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
Absolutely. I used to run my business accounts with paper and pencil. Just a ring binder file with lined paper plus vertical lines drawn in a with a ruler. Worked perfectly.
When doing our chapel conversion was persuaded to have a go with spread sheets etc. Result: complete confusion, no idea at all of what we spent, without intensive reworking.
Some of the PO people made the same point - pencil & paper ledgers very reliable and an obvious contemporaneous record with any editing or alterations clear and obvious for all time. No chance of being edited by third parties - you'd spot the rubbings out and handwriting for starters!
A pencil and paper is intuitive but a software program like Excel has to be learnt.
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
Pencil marks remain as a contemporaneous record of the act of entering the data, which you don't get with Excel - it could be edited or entirely revised and their could be no clues.
The fault with Horizon was that there was no backup or other data to show when, where, by whom, the data was entered.
And they lied about this big time.
Even if there had been it woud have been vulnerable to computer glitches and other interventions.
Today more and more questions about the failure of the CPS and DPP to step in. Impossible for anybody not to know that this fiasco was unrolling.
This software would have had "key-loggers", so any alterations would have been logged. Contrary to what Jacob has stated. Every single transaction would have been logged but you would have had to look, which it is obvious they didn't. With computer progs. it is extremely difficult to hide your tracks. Now with paper, who remembers the "My dog ate my homework" excuse?
I priced up work for ICL (who Fujitsu took over) for training terminals in Building Societies and gave up after the upteenth management meeting.
I priced up work for ICL (who Fujitsu took over) for training terminals in Building Societies and gave up after the upteenth management meeting.
selectortone
Still waking up not dead in the morning
Watching the testimony from the Post Office investigator at the inquiry today, a common theme became apparent - the accused sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses being discussed today being given the option of lesser penalties (ie avoiding jail) provided they signed affidavits saying the cash shortfall 'errors' were their fault and not the Horizon system's.
Imagine for a moment yourself, a law-abiding citizen and a pillar of society, being bullied into signing a document absolving the system that put you in the position you found yourself. The system that stole tens of thousands of pounds from you that you had to give the Post Office to make good the system's fictional shortfall.
It's like something out of a Kafka novel. Just appalling.
Imagine for a moment yourself, a law-abiding citizen and a pillar of society, being bullied into signing a document absolving the system that put you in the position you found yourself. The system that stole tens of thousands of pounds from you that you had to give the Post Office to make good the system's fictional shortfall.
It's like something out of a Kafka novel. Just appalling.
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
So Fujitsu would have known who put the data in, but kept it to themselves and instead decided to screw the postmasters and accuse them of fraud?
Sounds like they will end up with a massive claim for costs, damages etc etc.
Jbonevia
Established Member
I found this series of articles to be quite enlightening on the IT issues within Horizon and how they were handled or not by the Post Office.
The Post Office Horizon IT scandal, part 1 – errors and accuracy
The Post Office Horizon IT scandal, part 1 – errors and accuracy
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
It appears that you are saying is that these processes are robust and that every key operation would be logged?
Doesn't seem to have been the case?
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Reading the excellent blog linked by Jbonevia it appears that one of the bugs would have meant that duplicate transactions could be created; thus the logs would have shown that the user (the postmaster) had taken the action (even though they hadn't).
However, the fact that those were duplicate transactions in itself should have been cause for investigation; as it's fairly unlikely you'd get exactly the same transaction being repeated in a short time interval. That's not at all an uncommon sanity check in software systems (rapid duplicate messages/transactions likely indicating an error).
Reading between the lines I suspect the Post Office initially started to prosecute individual postmasters; based on the software logs clearly showing them to be at fault. By the time someone (internally) realised it was probably the software it was a large enough issue to have caused a major (public) storm, so "someone" decreed that it should be covered up. That wouldn't even need to have been an explicit message; just the instruction to keep blaming and prosecuting postmasters; in the hope that the software would eventually be fixed, and the true cause would never be discovered.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
Thanks for sharing this - it’s the best summary and analysis that I have come across.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
I agree - the e-mails quoted in the third instalment seems to suggest a cultural problem.
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
No defence of Fujitsu, but Horizon is not the only major IT foul up to confront the UK public sector - NHS, DWP, CAA being three rexamples which were late, over budget and failed to deliver.
The extent to which Fujitsu should be held liable is unclear but Post Office management of the contract was seriously flawed. The project started in 1996 was over budget and late.
We should ideally keep an open mind until the public enquiry has deliberated and reported, but many may not live to see the day - it has been running 3 years with no conclusions as yet.
Having watched some of it today I am left with the strong impression that the post office investigators were either incompetent or chose to look the other way at obvious clues, preferring to maintain the flaky illusion that the system was fit for purpose.
The only real question is were the senior management and directors of the Post Office, and responsible politicians:
The behaviour and actions of senior leaders (politicians and others) in public life falls well below an acceptable level. An IPSOS poll put politicians at the bottom of the public trust pile below estate agents, advertising execs, business leaders, and probably (although not listed) s/h car salesmen.
As with Covid, HS2 (not yet a public enquiry), Grenfall Towers and numerous others faith in leadership will only begin to be restored when they report swiftly and actions arising are robust and quickly implemented.
The extent to which Fujitsu should be held liable is unclear but Post Office management of the contract was seriously flawed. The project started in 1996 was over budget and late.
We should ideally keep an open mind until the public enquiry has deliberated and reported, but many may not live to see the day - it has been running 3 years with no conclusions as yet.
Having watched some of it today I am left with the strong impression that the post office investigators were either incompetent or chose to look the other way at obvious clues, preferring to maintain the flaky illusion that the system was fit for purpose.
The only real question is were the senior management and directors of the Post Office, and responsible politicians:
- mislead by staff at the coal face who claimed all was well
- simply incompetent
- negligent in not reacting to obvious clues
- corrupt in deliberately avoiding admission of late, over budget AND flawed
The behaviour and actions of senior leaders (politicians and others) in public life falls well below an acceptable level. An IPSOS poll put politicians at the bottom of the public trust pile below estate agents, advertising execs, business leaders, and probably (although not listed) s/h car salesmen.
As with Covid, HS2 (not yet a public enquiry), Grenfall Towers and numerous others faith in leadership will only begin to be restored when they report swiftly and actions arising are robust and quickly implemented.
Keith Cocker
Established Member
No
selectortone
Still waking up not dead in the morning
Here's a good BBC article about their 2015 Panorama programme on this. It shows that although, even up to 2019, Post Office management were saying they were not aware that remote access to sub-postoffice Horizon computers was possible, in fact they had been warned as far back as 2011 by their accountants Ernst &Young that it was possible:
Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon whistleblower
It also talks about intimidation of witnesses and the amount of (our) money the Post Office has spent defending itself. They were lying through their teeth. The money they took from the sub-postmasters and mistresses to cover the fictitious losses was declared in Post Office profits. This is fraud.
Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon whistleblower
It also talks about intimidation of witnesses and the amount of (our) money the Post Office has spent defending itself. They were lying through their teeth. The money they took from the sub-postmasters and mistresses to cover the fictitious losses was declared in Post Office profits. This is fraud.
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