FUJ00122939 - Gareth Jenkins comments on Rinkfield Report
Ref:
FUJ00122939
FUJ00122939
Comments on Rinkfield Report
g:\gij documents\poa\horizon\other\rinkfield\rinkfieldreport.doc
Author: Gareth I Jenkins
Date:
1.
2.
11/08/2010 12:03:00
Introduction
I’ve been asked to comment on the Expert Witness report produced by Charles
McLachlan in the case against Mrs Katherine McQue associated with Rinkfield.
I only have a paper copy of the report and started reading through it. I then realised
that some of it was familiar and so opened up an earlier report produced by Prof
McLachlan for the West Byfleet case (2"¢ Interim Report).
T have carried out a quick comparison of the two reports and to a large extent they are
identical (I would need a Word version of the Rinkfield report to do this more
thoroughly). I produced a Witness statement on 2° Feb 2010 which addresses the
West Byfleet report and most of the comments in that still apply.
This document shows where there are differences in the report and comments on the
new sections.
Detailed comments
Throughout, the details of Solicitors and Clients have been changed.
1) Section 1: Contextual rewording in 1.1.3 and the introduction of a further Post
Office in “South of England”. Also additional items in CV in section 1.2.22.
2) List of docs in 1.5.1 changed to reflect the case.
3) Section 1.6 on “Scope of Work” in Misra report has been removed (and
subsequent sections renumbered).
4) Section 1.7 updated. (NB 1.7.4 should refer to section 6 and not 5)
5) Section 2.1 is identical
6) Section 2.2 is new. See detailed response in section 3.1 below
7) Section 2.3 is identical to section 2.2 of original report
8) Section 3 is nearly the same as for the original report. The exception is:
a. 3.2.1 has additional text regarding misaligned touch screens
9) Section 4 is nearly the same as for the original report. The exception is:
a. 4.2.5 has additional text based on a conversation with me.
b. 4.2.6 is new
c. 4.4 is new
10) Section 5 is new
11) Section 6 is identical to section 5 of the original report.
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3.
3.1
12)
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Section 7 is new. See detailed response in section 0 below
Comments on new text
Section 2.2
))
2.2.2 describes issues with Travellers Cheques.
I don’t believe that this issue is described accurately. There are anomalies in
the way in which the system stores details of Travellers Cheques and Currency
and reports on them. However although this may cause confusion, it does not
result in any losses.
I have conducted some experiments on a Horizon terminal and have some
detailed responses:
a.
2.2.2.1: When TC Stock is remitted in, then the “Volume” represents
the Currency Value of the Travellers Cheques (ie $500 in the example)
and the value is zero. Horizon doesn’t assign any value to a TC until it
is sold. This should be clear in the Remittance Receipt. If a Balance
Snapshot is done at this point than it will show a Balance of 500 US
dollar TCs. Nowhere in Horizon will the value 41 appear.
2.2.2.3: Selling $50 of TC will change the Stock Quantity to $450 on
the Balance Snapshot (or Stock on Hand Report) and also appear on
the TC Sales report correctly. However, I accept that on the Balance
Snapshot under the Receipts section it does show a Volume of 1
against the TC sales rather than 50. This actually represents the fact
that there has been one Sale, but does not affect the actual Stock
Levels. It should also be noted that on this report there is a further
entry with zero value and a Volume of I that represents the change to
the change in the level of TC Stock. Again the Volume of one
represents a single sale and does not represent any value associated
with the Dollars TCs sold.
2.2.2.4: I don’t understand where this observation has come from.
2.2.2.5: I agree that this would be nonsense if this was the case, but it
is not the case.
2.2.2.6: The system does allow negative stock values to be held on a
temporary basis. This is to allow stock to be sold before it has been
recorded on the system as having been remitted in. Also, as the system
does not keep running totals of the stock levels (but rather calculates
the level when requested by taking an Opening Figure and all
movements due to sales, Remittances etc), and so would be unable to
easily enforce preventing Stock levels from going negative. However I
agree that it makes no sense in the real world and any negative stock
levels need to be resolved before a Stock Unit can e balanced.
2.2.2.7: As before this is not an issue.
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2)
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2.2.3 describes issues with A&L Credits.
I don’t believe that this issue is described accurately. The system does not
allow the scenario as described to occur. However I can think of slight
variants on the scenario that could occur and can explain the behaviour of such
cases. Again, this would not result in any losses to either the sub-postmaster
or the customer (or Post Office Ltd!)
3.2 Section 7
Section 7 consists of a number of bulleted items for possible further investigation.
In general I see no problem with such investigations other than that they will require
significant resource and time to carryout and are unlikely to result in any further
clarity. I will comment on those that I see as potentially affecting Fujitsu:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
2)
8)
Bullet 1: This may require co-operation from Fujitsu in providing logs for
comparison. Note that given HNG-X is in mid roll-out then this is unlikely to
be of any benefit unless done in the next week or two as rollout is due to
complete in August 2010.
Bullet 2: I’m not sure that we are in a position to do this for the Horizon
system. The UI was based on Escher’s Riposte and an agreed style Guide
with POL.
Bullet 3: I don’t know if such logs exist
Bullet 4: This is a normal ARQ I believe.
Bullets 5, 6, 8 to 11: these are for POL and not Fujitsu
Bullet 7: Not sure exactly what is required here. It sounds like details of
Banking Reconciliation reports relating to the Branches. Not sure if these are
easy / possible to provide or for how long they are retained.
Bullet 12: Not sure about scope of this. Is it just counter fixes for that
Branch?
Bullet 13: I thought I’d covered this in a Witness statement for West Byfleet.
The rest of section 7 is various press cuttings. Finally there are 2 almost legible pages
that describe how Charles thinks a Card Payment system works, but is nothing like
Horizon.
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