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To Kathryn Cook/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Martin
O'Toole/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE
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From Clare Dryhurst/POCL/POSTOFFICE
Date 14/06/99 13:52
Subject Fwd: Letter to John Bennett, ICL Pathway ie)
Right on cue! Kathryn, I think this helpfully articulates what is going on out there and I assume that
Peter will circulate this round the network team.
Clare
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for info
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Gail Morley/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, BSM Team, Don
Grey/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Jon Millidge@MAILHUB, Paul N
Harris/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Graeme
Seedall/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Harvey
Skipsey/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Peter
Restarick/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE
Eszter Meszaros/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE
Andrew Radka/POCL/POSTOFFICE.
14/06/99 09:36
Fwd: Letter to John Bennett, ICL Pathway ie)
Andrew Radka/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Keith
Baines/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Mark
Kelly/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Christopher French@MAILHUB
Mike Cakebread/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Dawn Green@MAILHUB,
Douglas Craik/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE
Avila Smith/POCL/POSTOFFICE
14/06/99 09:28
Letter to John Bennett, ICL Pathway
To see the attached letter to John Bennett. Can you please ensure our commitment to allow key
managers to visit offices is put in place. The contact with the regions should be through the RLMs in
North East and South West.
Regards
Bruce
Bennett 1406.d
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John Bennett
Managing Director
ICL Pathway
Forest Road
Feltham
Middlesex TW13 7EJ 14% June 1999
Dear John
We spoke on Friday about the information which was emerging through the
series of meetings with the Live Trial subpostmasters. We have now
completed four meetings over the past ten days which have drawn in almost
all of the original 204 outlets and many of the additional 100.
I’ve attached a summary of the comments which focuses mostly on one
particular event on 10% June and supplemented by additional input from
Thursday night. By its nature it is anecdotal but founded on the real life
experience of those subpostmasters. We will be constructing a more
integrated summary from all four events later this week. You will see the
comments have been collected against each of the key implementation stages
and reflect what went well, what went badly and the key lessons learned.
Part of the purpose for an early exchange of these views is to raise the profile
of the difficulties being experienced by the front line users. There was a
degree of emotion attached to each event which cannot be disregarded. One
thread running through many of the comments was the feeling of inadequacy
which people of long experience suddenly faced when confronted with the
change. There was also a sense of abandonment which the early offices felt
because of the difficulties in finding access to support which could solve their
problems.
One thing I intend to do within the Horizon programme is to require all the
senior front line managers to visit offices over the next two weeks. We need to
ensure people engage with these concerns in a way which reflects the users
experience. We agreed this is something which could be supported from
Pathway and we can spend a little more time setting out the ground rules.
The visits need to be structured i.e. incorporate a set number of offices with
different experiences and the conversations need to be focused in the same
way as the feedback from the subpostmasters meeting.
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There are three other immediate implications which we will have to address
with urgency;
1.
An initial training evaluation has been carried out by POCL research
services and highlights the potential areas for improvement. I believe
this is already being shared in the training area but we also need to
understand how some of the root causes are being addressed. The final
report due shortly will reflect all users experience and is expected to be
critical.
The deployment of HFSO’s was intended to be a business support to
assist the learning curve and maintain customer service standards.
However, they have effectively been used as an extension to the
implementation and training process and as a means of covering
deficiencies in those areas. The deployment to support cash accounts
was not planned and if this becomes an inevitable addition to the
contracted service there are clear cost implications.
Another cost area is the additional staffing which these Live Trial
offices are incurring over the first few weeks of Go Live. This
expenditure has been used to maintain service to customers and to
complete cash account and other administrative procedures. If changes
to the systems and services do not eradicate this effect, the flow
through to roll-out will carry a significant cost burden. In addition to
these outlet based issues there are enough emerging concerns from the
transaction processing end to suggest another build up of resourcing
cost pressures in those areas.
Clearly, the way to avoid those issues is to ensure there are plans to rectify or
mitigate the causes and I believe we now have a management process in place
to ensure the key issues are driven at the appropriate level. Part of this is the
interaction between Andy Radka and Steve Muchow to ensure there is
common understanding of the emerging issues in the user environment. This
will be a critical element in live trial evaluation and Acceptance.
Yours sincerely
Bruce McNiven
Director
Horizon Programme
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Dave Miller
Mena Rego
Andy Radka
Chris French
Keith Baines
Mark Kelly
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