Unearthed report reveals supply of Submit Workplace’s tenuous Seize gross sales pitch
An inner Submit Workplace report has been unearthed that reveals the organisation was focusing on gross sales of its flawed Seize system to hundreds of branches with deceptive claims on error discount.
The 13-page report from July 1993, which has been disclosed to Pc Weekly by a supply, was titled: Seize: An investigation into adjustments in money account errors.
Just like the Horizon system, which was launched later and is as we speak on the coronary heart of the Submit Workplace scandal, the Seize software program utilized in Submit Workplace branches was confirmed to have induced accounting discrepancies, for which subpostmasters had been blamed and punished.
Data from the 1993 report was utilized in gross sales pitches for Seize, whereby subpostmasters had been led to imagine that the floppy disk-based software program would cut back errors of their accounting returns. However the report didn’t have in mind potential software-generated errors, solely errors noticed at its checking centre in Chesterfield, the place paper money accounts had been despatched.
There is no such thing as a suggestion that the report was ever supposed to take a look at software program errors, however the Submit Workplace gross sales pitch used a determine from it, suggesting accounting errors had been lowered, with out contemplating software-generated errors. It has now admitted they might have induced accounting discrepancies.
The inner report analysed accounting errors at branches earlier than and after the software program was put in, and suggested the Submit Workplace on its Seize gross sales technique. However based on an knowledgeable, it ignored software-generated errors in its analysis.
• Learn the unearthed report right here: Seize: An investigation into adjustments in money account errors •
In a June 1994 e-newsletter from “the Seize workforce” to subpostmasters, the Submit Workplace revealed that branches utilizing the Seize system had 55% fewer accounting errors than those who had not put in the software program.
“Do you know? Seize Workplaces make 55% fewer money account errors than non-automated places of work,” stated the e-newsletter. It additionally revealed that, by then, the software program was utilized in 1,300 branches.
However one former Submit Workplace employee with knowledgeable information, who has studied the report, stated: “The creator appears to have relied wholly on ‘reported errors’ data, coming from a Submit Workplace checking workforce in Chesterfield.
“These groups wouldn’t have had any means of figuring out whether or not the errors had been system-generated or user-generated. They might nearly actually not have suspected the software program, and so would most likely have thought the subpostmasters made the errors.”
The Submit Workplace didn’t touch upon the report, citing that it didn’t imagine it had been made conscious of the doc it commissioned. However a spokesperson stated: “Now we have been very involved in regards to the reported issues regarding using the Seize software program and are sincerely sorry for previous failings which have induced struggling to postmasters.”
The Legal Instances Evaluation Fee is at the moment reviewing about 30 Seize-based instances of potential wrongful conviction and has already referred one to the Court docket of Enchantment.
A 2024 report by investigation agency Kroll, instigated by the fallout of the Horizon scandal, concluded there’s a “cheap probability” that the Submit Workplace’s Seize software program induced the accounting shortfalls subpostmasters had been blamed for.
The previous Submit Workplace employee added: “This [1993] report was most likely commissioned by the Submit Workplace Seize workforce in search of to supply a constructive ‘error discount’ message about Seize, and attempting to spice up gross sales, a 12 months after its launch.”
The report got here at a time when the Submit Workplace was attempting to compete with accounting programs from third-party suppliers utilized in branches, akin to an MS-DOS-based system created by subpostmaster Richard Jackson.
The Submit Workplace was eyeing main gross sales of the software program, which price subpostmasters over £1,000 initially. The report suggested the Submit Workplace that Seize gross sales had thus far been extra profitable in small places of work than competing software program, and that it ought to goal bigger branches, the place it believed hundreds nonetheless had no “balancing software program”.
The unearthed report stated: “Up till 1993, Seize had been offered to 823 subpostmasters and competing software program to 911. That is lower than 10% of the community of [branches]. Thus, the potential marketplace for the product continues to be very giant.”
The Submit Workplace eradicated all competitors in 2000, when it mandated that every one branches to maneuver to the Horizon system from Fujitsu.
Fast to level the finger
Seize price some subpostmasters far more than the worth of the software program. It was across the time of the report that subpostmasters who had unexplained account shortfalls whereas utilizing the system had been focused by the Submit Workplace.
Over the rest of the last decade, the Submit Workplace blamed Seize customers for unexplained accounting shortfalls. It made them cowl the shortfalls and prosecuted many for monetary crimes.
For instance, former Seize consumer Peter Lloyd-Holt, who died aged 75 in 2021, was sacked in 1994 from his function as a subpostmaster in Bolton, after accounts at his department confirmed unexplained shortfalls.
Talking earlier this 12 months, his spouse Agnes, who labored as an investigator for the Division for Work and Pensions on the time he was sacked, stated life was by no means the identical once more. “That was the start of the top. He was interviewed below warning with out illustration. I used to be contacted however not allowed to attend,” she stated.
“He was finally informed in March 1995 that he wasn’t going to be prosecuted, however he was nonetheless held accountable for the shortfalls, and we had been made to pay again a substantial sum.”
Former subpostmaster June Tooby, who died in 2020, started being hounded by the Submit Workplace in 1994 and spent years difficult the Submit Workplace over alleged shortfalls within the accounts at her department in County Durham.
She was sued for greater than £55,000 and brought to courtroom in 2003, resulting in her being declared bankrupt. In February this 12 months, the Submit Workplace apologised “sincerely and unreservedly” to Tooby’s husband Ken for the “failings and impression” on his late spouse.
After Seize was changed, the Submit Workplace went on to make use of its non-public prosecution powers to realize convictions of greater than 900 folks for monetary crimes primarily based on knowledge from the Horizon system. It additionally ruined the lives of many extra who suffered unexplained shortfalls.
The controversy over the Seize system emerged in January 2024, after the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Submit Workplace informed the tales of subpostmasters who had suffered by the hands of the Horizon system.
It was the identical month that Kevan Jones, an MP on the time who now sits within the Home of Lords, highlighted proof of injustices triggered by Seize losses.
Diffrent tech, identical method
Whereas Seize was described by some customers as “a glorified spreadsheet”, Horizon was an enormous enterprise system utilized by practically 20,000 branches initially, connecting them with Submit Workplace programs. It was the most important non-military software program system in Europe on the time it was rolled out.
Again then, the Submit Workplace ignored warnings about critical considerations over the software program, which was inflicting “difficulties and trauma” for subpostmasters struggling to stability their accounts.
Throughout a public inquiry listening to into the Submit Workplace Horizon scandal, in October 2022, it emerged that reside trials of the Horizon pc system in Submit Workplace branches in 1999 led to a warning from subpostmasters that software program issues meant “a tragedy was not distant”.
A Nationwide Federation of Subpostmasters govt council assembly, held over two days in June 1999, was referred to throughout the inquiry. The minutes of that assembly stated: “There was basic dialogue on the extreme difficulties being skilled by subpostmasters who’re already working [Horizon].”
It stated that seven sheets of feedback from North-East England-based subpostmasters with critical considerations had been handed to David Miller, the then Submit Workplace Horizon programme director.
The assembly report added: “The difficulties and trauma being skilled by some subpostmasters had been giving rise to considerations for his or her well being and emotional well-being. It was felt by some {that a} tragedy was not distant if one thing isn’t altered quickly.”
The Submit Workplace referred to as for folks with any details about Seize, just like the report revealed by Pc Weekly, to come back ahead with it in help of investigations. “[We have] restricted data regarding this technique and we encourage anybody who has Seize-related materials to share it with the Submit Workplace and the CCRC,” it stated.
Pc Weekly first uncovered the Submit Workplace scandal in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered attributable to Horizon accounting software program.
• Learn extra: All the pieces you could know in regards to the Submit Workplace scandal •
