Fujitsu saying they have a moral duty to compensate victims.
Wonder why, all of a sudden? 🙄
Don't knock it, it's a step in the right direction. I think most of us had a suspicion that they might try and hide, like the PO people seem to have done when giving evidence in the past, but at least he seems to be saying the right sort of thing now.
From the BBC;
Mr Patterson apologised for Fujitsu's role in what he said was an "appalling miscarriage of justice", and admitted the company had been "involved from the very start".
"We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters," he said.
Asked why Fujitsu didn't do anything about glitches in the Horizon system when the company knew about them at an early stage, Mr Patterson said: "I don't know. I really don't know."
I have a slightly different take to many on all this. There is a principle that I have observed that human beings have a capacity to believe what they want to believe. My late father once told me that the first place you should look for something is where you don't want to find it. I think this is so true but not sure how much it helps you other than being more likely to get to the truth. I think it is a shame the Post Office and Fujitsu didn't have this philosophy. I think this was the major factor at play here as well as being so far down a path that going back looks impossible so you don't try in this case. It caused people not to look at the facts that were getting clearer and clearer by the day. I have seen lots of examples of this in my life but this was an extreme one.
Ignoring the facts to suit your position is misconduct and as the post office workers that were affected, were ruined, went to prison and even died the compensation paid to them should be through the roof. They are the victims. And those directly responsible who profitted from it all, Vennells and Fuitsu definitely, should be made to pay financially. But we all should shoulder some blame. I was aware of most of this before the drama and I must admit, I haven't watched it. It was common knowledge before Vennells got her CBE in 2019, and she accepted it despite it being so at that time.
It seems to me that we all are a bit guilty in this. I knew about it and assumed all the parties had been compensated in all honesty but I didn't make a lot of effort investigating it further. Those that got angry (for the first time) by the drama should take a look at themselves as it was as I said common knowledge years ago. Now bringing politics into it is disgusting. It is a systemic problem that should be beyond politics. Yes lessons need to be learned but it shouldn't relate to the rosette colour of a party. We all need to learn from it and indeed miscarriages of justice like Hillsborough. That is what is required going forwards.
The only outside people who something to answer for are the politicians who knew about the injustice of this scandal and completely failed to act until it became wide public knowledge.
Trying to 'shame' people, and position yourself as better than them, because you knew about it earlier, reflects badly on you.
I was shaming myself if you actually understood what I was saying. I knew about it earlier and so did many of us. Was I clamouring for justice at the time? No, I just assumed the victims had got it.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
Fujitsu have a track record in suing when Government's have tried to get out of contracts.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
I don't know if it's been raised on here (apologies if it has) but all these 'errors' showed a deficit. Were there no occasions where accounts showed a credit?
I don't know if it's been raised on here (apologies if it has) but all these 'errors' showed a deficit. Were there no occasions where accounts showed a credit?
I did see a poster mention that two weeks ago but I'm sure if accounts ever showed credits, Fujitsu or the PO would have stated that in their defense. Until about 2015, the terrible twosome just kept to the manta that horizon was "Robust" and the Postmasters were the "only one"
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
The technical explanation is only half the story, don’t forget. The other half is the helpline team who told every postmaster reporting the defect that they “were the only ones”. And that was a flat out, pre-meditated lie. Those telling the lies were Fujitsu employees.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
The technical explanation is only half the story, don’t forget. The other half is the helpline team who told every postmaster reporting the defect that they “were the only ones”. And that was a flat out, pre-meditated lie. Those telling the lies were Fujitsu employees.
Of course.
But again I assume the help desk was a service provided for the PO and there would likely have been MI provided to them on number and nature of calls etc. and agreed review points etc.
we have yet to learn who and how staff were trained/told how to deal with queries.
We don’t know if Fujitsu under played issues to the PO or if the PO dictated an approach.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
The technical explanation is only half the story, don’t forget. The other half is the helpline team who told every postmaster reporting the defect that they “were the only ones”. And that was a flat out, pre-meditated lie. Those telling the lies were Fujitsu employees.
Of course.
But again I assume the help desk was a service provided for the PO and there would likely have been MI provided to them on number and nature of calls etc. and agreed review points etc.
we have yet to learn who and how staff were trained/told how to deal with queries.
We don’t know if Fujitsu under played issues to the PO or if the PO dictated an approach.
We just don’t know.
In his book, Nick Wallis talks of the financial penalties for service breakdowns, which meant that Fujitsu did not have an incentive to keep the Post Office fully informed about every problem as it manifested itself.
Nick Wallis also says that the contractual environment created a dangerous situation where it was cheaper and easier for all concerned to blame sub postmasters instead.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
The technical explanation is only half the story, don’t forget. The other half is the helpline team who told every postmaster reporting the defect that they “were the only ones”. And that was a flat out, pre-meditated lie. Those telling the lies were Fujitsu employees.
Of course.
But again I assume the help desk was a service provided for the PO and there would likely have been MI provided to them on number and nature of calls etc. and agreed review points etc.
we have yet to learn who and how staff were trained/told how to deal with queries.
We don’t know if Fujitsu under played issues to the PO or if the PO dictated an approach.
We just don’t know.
In his book, Nick Wallis talks of the financial penalties for service breakdowns, which meant that Fujitsu did not have an incentive to keep the Post Office fully informed about every problem as it manifested itself.
I would have imagined that term relates to a service outage / downtime.
But I take the point the contract may disincentivise some reporting.
Depends also I guess on how their performance was checked / what sort of Quality Assurance or audit process used.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
The technical explanation is only half the story, don’t forget. The other half is the helpline team who told every postmaster reporting the defect that they “were the only ones”. And that was a flat out, pre-meditated lie. Those telling the lies were Fujitsu employees.
Of course.
But again I assume the help desk was a service provided for the PO and there would likely have been MI provided to them on number and nature of calls etc. and agreed review points etc.
we have yet to learn who and how staff were trained/told how to deal with queries.
We don’t know if Fujitsu under played issues to the PO or if the PO dictated an approach.
We just don’t know.
It basically boils down to this. Fujitsu knew there were issues and in some cases actually told the PO that was the case. Fujitsu never assumed it would lead to persecution of the post masters. And really it was none of their business. They just assumed the PO would do their own internal investigations. PO assumed in most cases there was no issue as they were told early on by Fujitsu that the system was infallible. When Fujitsu started to change their tune about the resilience of the system and told the PO , the PO chose to wholly ignore them. They turned a very big blind eye. They were in balls deep with it now and the opportunity to call it out for the shit piece of hardware it was had long gone.
I don't understand why Fujitsu are being asked to make a donation for moral reasons. They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract? The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
I would assume the opposite.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
The technical explanation is only half the story, don’t forget. The other half is the helpline team who told every postmaster reporting the defect that they “were the only ones”. And that was a flat out, pre-meditated lie. Those telling the lies were Fujitsu employees.
Of course.
But again I assume the help desk was a service provided for the PO and there would likely have been MI provided to them on number and nature of calls etc. and agreed review points etc.
we have yet to learn who and how staff were trained/told how to deal with queries.
We don’t know if Fujitsu under played issues to the PO or if the PO dictated an approach.
We just don’t know.
It basically boils down to this. Fujitsu knew there were issues and in some cases actually told the PO that was the case. Fujitsu never assumed it would lead to persecution of the post masters. And really it was none of their business. They just assumed the PO would do their own internal investigations. PO assumed in most cases there was no issue as they were told early on by Fujitsu that the system was infallible. When Fujitsu started to change their tune about the resilience of the system and told the PO , the PO chose to wholly ignore them. They turned a very big blind eye. They were in balls deep with it now and the opportunity to call it out for the shit piece of hardware it was had long gone.
Thanks everyone. I forgot all about the sign off on handover after testing by the client.
A separate point that puzzles me. I wonder whether the shortfalls happened every day or were sporadic. If it was every day then I wonder whether any sub postmaster asked the PO to send a person over to run it for a day and see for themselves. Apologies if this was covered in the TV programme as I haven't watched it.
A separate point that puzzles me. I wonder whether the shortfalls happened every day or were sporadic. If it was every day then I wonder whether any sub postmaster asked the PO to send a person over to run it for a day and see for themselves. Apologies if this was covered in the TV programme as I haven't watched it.
They did on many occasions, but the sub postmasters were always told there was no problem.
A separate point that puzzles me. I wonder whether the shortfalls happened every day or were sporadic. If it was every day then I wonder whether any sub postmaster asked the PO to send a person over to run it for a day and see for themselves. Apologies if this was covered in the TV programme as I haven't watched it.
Puzzles me too.
From what I've read it seems the problems were random and sporadic. Not every terminal had a problem and those that did didn't seem have a problem all of the time. Which the IT experts will probably tell us makes it more difficult to identify and fix than a problem affecting all the terminals, or some of the terminals all of the time, where presumably the issue is easier to isolate and change/fix.
That's why I suspect the PO took the line that their system was "robust", not perfect but robust, because it handled millions of transactions each day and in that context only a relatively small number of "problems" arose. For the vast majority of transactions it possibly even did the job it was supposed to do right from the start and possibly still does.
And up to that point I would say "fair enough". Any new system will have problems and bugs that need ironing out. Anyone with even indirect experience of new systems coming in will know and appreciate that. It happens, you just have to deal with it, work through it and sort it as soon as you can.
Which all goes to make the decision to go ahead with the prosecutions, destroying ordinary innocent peoples live, even more difficult to fathom or understand. No doubt there's Olympic size levels of incompetence gone on at all levels, but some people somewhere took the decision not just to do nothing, but to actively press ahead with persecuting people when they knew, THEY MUST HAVE KNOWN, that the evidence against them was doubtful, to put it mildly. The c***s.
Listening to Bradshaw, the remarkably incurious post office 'investigator' who denied actually doing any investigating, it struck me that in different times he'd have made an ideal concentration camp guard. 'Only following orders' seemed to be his mantra. (I don't suggest he was evil, just happy to keep his eyes fixed on the immediate task handed down to him by his superiors and give no thought to the wider scope of what the machine in which he was a small but important cog was doing)
I don't have any inside information on this, but my gut feeling is it was probably a network timeout problem between the terminal and the server, which the software wasn't written to deal with correctly. Those kind of issues tend to be intermittent and difficult to reproduce to order (especially given that developers usually have far better machines and network connectivity than the people who will actually use it), but can play merry hell with reconciliation processes, as it can mean that the terminal thinks a transaction hasn't completed while the server thinks it has, or vice versa. The first port of call if you've got a discrepancy on the totals is to have a look at the transaction listings to see if anything looks weird, such as duplicate transactions or unexpected jumps between transaction references that should be sequential, which I assume is what the support staff were doing in the background. Ideally there'd be some kind of automated exceptions report or log generated at each end for transactions that failed part way through, to make that process easier and flag up common errors, but that often doesn't happen until someone's recognised it's a significant problem.
Listening to Bradshaw, the remarkably incurious post office 'investigator' who denied actually doing any investigating, it struck me that in different times he'd have made an ideal concentration camp guard. 'Only following orders' seemed to be his mantra. (I don't suggest he was evil, just happy to keep his eyes fixed on the immediate task handed down to him by his superiors and give no thought to the wider scope of what the machine in which he was a small but important cog was doing)
A thoroughly nasty individual, his comments about Lee Castleton in an email to colleagues giving evidence at Lee's trial were dreadful. A BBC reporter spoke to Lee Castleton after that part of the Inquiry and he said that he couldn't ever recall meeting Bradshaw. Some of the Fujitsu people appear to have already made up their minds that it was the postmasters who were at fault.
Having caught the performance of Fujitsu's ex head of Prosecution Support Services, Peter Sewell, I think it identifies the link in the chain of processes that broke down allowing the likes of Bradshaw to succeed. He accepted no responsibility for even managing the department of which he was head, and feigned no memory of anything that evidence proved he did.
Had Sewell, a spineless slug, whose dereliction of duty to manage the production of true, factual prosecution witness statements, not conspired to have his department's statements edited to remove any suggestion of known weaknesses, bugs and errors in the system, the scandal would never have arisen. Post Office would have had no ammunition.
After Vennels and the other board executives who persecuted victims, Sewell should be the next in line to stand in the dock.
I still get over the fact that there were almost 1000 prosecutions for theft, fraud & mis-accounting and the PO just seemed to think that this was normal. Did they really think hundreds upon hundreds of sub-postmasters were corrupt ? Just staggers the mind that there were no decent people in the investigation/ legal depts who didnt stand up and say "there must be something wrong"......and whistleblow.
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Ignoring the facts to suit your position is misconduct and as the post office workers that were affected, were ruined, went to prison and even died the compensation paid to them should be through the roof. They are the victims. And those directly responsible who profitted from it all, Vennells and Fuitsu definitely, should be made to pay financially. But we all should shoulder some blame. I was aware of most of this before the drama and I must admit, I haven't watched it. It was common knowledge before Vennells got her CBE in 2019, and she accepted it despite it being so at that time.
It seems to me that we all are a bit guilty in this. I knew about it and assumed all the parties had been compensated in all honesty but I didn't make a lot of effort investigating it further. Those that got angry (for the first time) by the drama should take a look at themselves as it was as I said common knowledge years ago. Now bringing politics into it is disgusting. It is a systemic problem that should be beyond politics. Yes lessons need to be learned but it shouldn't relate to the rosette colour of a party. We all need to learn from it and indeed miscarriages of justice like Hillsborough. That is what is required going forwards.
Trying to 'shame' people, and position yourself as better than them, because you knew about it earlier, reflects badly on you.
They delivered a product that didn't do what it was supposed to. Surely there is a claim for breach of contract?
The compensation could then be put into the Post masters' fund.
When things are outsourced they ultimately get accepted or rejected by the business after testing etc. That's what allows the contract to trigger next stage of payments etc.
Potentially all boxes were ticked and known faults accepted etc. Its usually the business (Post Office in this case) who have to say 'yes - its ok (enough))'.
We haven't heard the technical explanation (I don't think) of what the root cause of the issues were that lead to 'differences' cropping up and when ultimately resolved / identified etc.
I did see a poster mention that two weeks ago but I'm sure if accounts ever showed credits, Fujitsu or the PO would have stated that in their defense. Until about 2015, the terrible twosome just kept to the manta that horizon was "Robust" and the Postmasters were the "only one"
we have yet to learn who and how staff were trained/told how to deal with queries.
PO assumed in most cases there was no issue as they were told early on by Fujitsu that the system was infallible. When Fujitsu started to change their tune about the resilience of the system and told the PO , the PO chose to wholly ignore them. They turned a very big blind eye. They were in balls deep with it now and the opportunity to call it out for the shit piece of hardware it was had long gone.
I wonder whether the shortfalls happened every day or were sporadic.
If it was every day then I wonder whether any sub postmaster asked the PO to send a person over to run it for a day and see for themselves.
Apologies if this was covered in the TV programme as I haven't watched it.
From what I've read it seems the problems were random and sporadic. Not every terminal had a problem and those that did didn't seem have a problem all of the time. Which the IT experts will probably tell us makes it more difficult to identify and fix than a problem affecting all the terminals, or some of the terminals all of the time, where presumably the issue is easier to isolate and change/fix.
That's why I suspect the PO took the line that their system was "robust", not perfect but robust, because it handled millions of transactions each day and in that context only a relatively small number of "problems" arose. For the vast majority of transactions it possibly even did the job it was supposed to do right from the start and possibly still does.
And up to that point I would say "fair enough". Any new system will have problems and bugs that need ironing out. Anyone with even indirect experience of new systems coming in will know and appreciate that. It happens, you just have to deal with it, work through it and sort it as soon as you can.
Which all goes to make the decision to go ahead with the prosecutions, destroying ordinary innocent peoples live, even more difficult to fathom or understand. No doubt there's Olympic size levels of incompetence gone on at all levels, but some people somewhere took the decision not just to do nothing, but to actively press ahead with persecuting people when they knew, THEY MUST HAVE KNOWN, that the evidence against them was doubtful, to put it mildly. The c***s.
(I don't suggest he was evil, just happy to keep his eyes fixed on the immediate task handed down to him by his superiors and give no thought to the wider scope of what the machine in which he was a small but important cog was doing)
Had Sewell, a spineless slug, whose dereliction of duty to manage the production of true, factual prosecution witness statements, not conspired to have his department's statements edited to remove any suggestion of known weaknesses, bugs and errors in the system, the scandal would never have arisen. Post Office would have had no ammunition.
After Vennels and the other board executives who persecuted victims, Sewell should be the next in line to stand in the dock.