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SIMON BURNS MP. Y
HOUSE OF COMMONS I! . cee
LONDON SW1A 044
I David Mills Esq
Chief Executive 7
Post Office Lid 4 I
80 Old Street tS
London ECLV 9HQ f
21 November 2005
I @ De He at
I ing to behalf of 2 constituent of mine, Mr A Bajaj of
J, who nms the sub post office in Clematis Tye
j. I am also enclosing a letter that Mr Bajaj sent to Elaine Ridge on 4"
Sepsemifer'Wwhich, broadly, explains the problem that he came to discuss with me.
‘Mr Bajaj, who is personally known to me, and who I believe is 100% honest and
trustworthy, swears that the reason for the shortages in money is due to a computer
sofiware error. I would be grateful if your office could took into this mater and try
and get to the botiom of it so that it can be amicably resolved, because it would be a
terrible thing if it was a computer error that was causing the problem that is leading to
so many discrepancies.
Took forward to hearing from you
42 (Qierlee
WORKING FOR WEST CHELMSFORD,
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FAD Io NEY,
‘Without Prejudice
To
Blaine Ridge
Area Performance Manager Dated 21*.Nov.,2005.
P.O. Ltd,, 1-King Street, Maidstone,
Kent, MEI4BP,
Madam,
In continuation of my letters of 31".of July, 5“ Aug. 18" Aug. 7®.Sept.and
14 Sept.2005, Iregret to state that nothing has been done to check the software, to
my knowledge so far. Though I resigned in frustration and took it back, after talking,
to Mandy Lawless, to continue providing service to the community, till the post-office
‘was sold or some other arrangements could be made to rum this branch from this very
premises. The computer was restarted froin 2ero, after payment by cheque without
prejudice amounting to £300.00, shown as shortage on the computer because of the
defective horizon soft-ware and not of any human error. Throughout the next trading
period each evening, at the end of the day, the computer showed always litte plus and
nota penny minus. But after first monthly balancing, last week, it showed cash all
right but the stamps about £300.00 adrift. On 17" Nov., at the close of the day, the
computer showed £2555.91 short. Everything was rechecked for this sudden shortage
but nothing could be found. Help-line was contacted at 5.4Sp.m.and Jenny told me
that she would get it checked and will ring-back in the morning, Efforts were made to
contact Mandy Lawless on her mobile between 6p.m. and 7.30 p.m. but her phone
‘was not on. Nothing has been heard from the help-line. All the weekly and daily
records have been kept in separate envelopes for the last 4 months so that these can be
checked by any one any time. Since this is the 4" time the same problem has occurred
so J again urge you to get the horizon soft-ware duly checked. To have such huge
shortages without any cogent reasons, excepting the defective software, is totally un-
imaginable and baffling. Previously, the post-office had been paid by us in the hope
that it would find the necessary errors, since it takes about 14 weeks for the post-
office to check an account for the current date and is always behind by that time. Ifno
errors are found then where the figures are altered, obviously at your end. We had this
post-office for almost 16 years. The staff with us have been for % years and never
such a situation had arisen. [hope you would appreciate that itis humanly and =.
financially impossible to carry on under this uncalled for strain and condition. After _
publication of our plight in the “SUBPOST-MASTER? over 12 post-masters have
‘come forward who have had similar experience and also the sub-postmasters whose
post-offices bad been closed because they either refused to re-imburse or could not
afford this soft-ware fault luxury. Ihave paid thrice in the hope that the post-office
would eventually find fault where it is and rectify the same. But regret to say that for
the last 5 months my efforts had been in vain. :
To prove what has been stated in the past and above, I invite you to appoint 2 post~
master, at our cost(out of the monthly salary) say for 3 months or so to check your self
‘the computer hard-ware at this office. And till that period this so-called adrift amount
in the suspense account. For your information this post-office is for sale because of
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