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HORIZON WORKING GROUP - FIFTH MEETING 11 OCTOBER 1999 AT 11.30 AM.
STEERING BRIEF
Agenda Item 1: introductory remarks / approval of agenda /minutes of last meeting
I suggest you start by paying tribute to the work of your predecessor in getting the Group up
and running; stress that you share his view of the valuable role the Group can play in helping to
make a success of the Horizon project; and commit yourself to working with the members of
the Group to fulfil that potential. You will then need to consider any suggestions for additions
to the agenda (though the agenda is already a very full one for the time available - you may
therefore wish to suggest that discussion of any new item raised is carried over to the next
meeting). There may also be suggestions to amend the notes of the last meeting, though we
have received none so far. We will table at the meeting a paper containing relevant extracts
from the Parliamentary activity shortly before the summer recess which Derek Hodgson
requested at the last meeting.
Agenda Item 2: update by PO on progress with project
After several delays to allow ICL more time to rectify defects in the system, the Post Office
formally accepted the system from ICL last month for the start of national roll-out. We
understand that acceptance was subject to a number of caveats, but that there is agreement
between the two parties that roll-out will still be completed by March 2001 by virtue of some
speeding up of the programme in the final months to compensate for this further delay in
getting national roll-out under way. At the last meeting, Ian McCartney stressed to the Group
the importance of ensuring that there was no slippage to the roll-out programme. The drift to
ACT would continue and it was important that the Post Office should be able, as quickly as
possible, to offer banking facilities to keep as many as possible of those recipients using post
offices to withdraw their benefits. It was also clear that the Benefits Agency would start the
migration of all benefit recipients to ACT in 2003, whether the Post Office was by then ready
or not. You may wish to stress these points to the Group again.
Agenda Item 3:
a) payment for OBCS / floor payments
The Post Office is likely to report that it has made no substantive progress on this issue with its
Benefits Agency colleagues, who will have insisted that the issue rests with Ministers. You
will report on this at Agenda Item 4.
b)bar codes
The Post Office will report on this three-cornered squabble between the Benefits Agency,
POCL and ICL. The Benefits Agency has complained that the version of the order book
control service (OBCS) fitted to Horizon (unlike the stand-alone version which has been in a
number of offices within the M25 for several years now) had an unacceptably high failure rate
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in reading bar codes on order books. ICL countered by claiming that the problem lay with the
bar codes themselves - a claim hotly denied by BA. A third version of the story attributed
blame to the poor quality paper content of the order books on which the bar codes were printed.
The latest update we have received gave increasing credibility to this last theory.
c) development of ACT migration strategy
The Post Office will report on its on-going discussions with BA on this. We were previously
told that BA had been required to develop a worked-up strategy for agreement with DSS
Ministers before the summer recess. We suggest that the Benefits Agency should be asked to
attend the next meeting of the Working Group so that we can pursue this with them at first
hand, (see Agenda Item 6 below) but in the meantime, the Post Office can let the Group know
whether there have been any significant developments.
d) roll-out issues
The Post Office can be asked to spell out for the Group its latest agreement with ICL on the
timescale and phasing of the revised roll-out programme. A key role of the Working Group
will be to ensure that the CWU, the CMA and the NFSP are all fully signed up to achieving
that programme and will cooperate fully to overcome any difficulties or delays that may arise.
Agenda item 4: update by Minister on discussion with colleagues
After several attempts by Jan McCartney to persuade Alistair Darling to increase the amount of
money available for the Benefits Agency to pay to POCL for operating OBCS on Horizon, you
sought to enlist the help of Lord Falconer to reach some kind of acceptable compromise.
However, Lord Falconer was clearly unwilling to re-engage in the Horizon discussions and
simply suggested you should approach Alistair Darling again. Given the latter's adamant "can't
pay, won't pay" stance, there seems little point in a further approach. Nor is the Chief
Secretary likely to be any more sympathetic. None of this will come as any great surprise to
members of the Group, and I suggest you should be reasonably frank with them about where
matters now stand. You might say to the Group that whilst you will continue to press your
colleagues for some improvement in the rate of payment for OBCS, you regard the important
goal now as securing the continuation until at least 2003 of the guaranteed minimum payment
or "floor" which BA must pay to POCL if volumes drop below a certain level. Securing this
floor offers the best insurance against the Benefits Agency ramping up their efforts to move
people to ACT in advance of 2003. One possibility is that Alistair Darling would be willing
for the Benefits Agency to reinstate the floor until 2003, and perhaps agree to a revised floor
for the years 2004 and 2005, in return for dropping the demand for substantial increase in the
OBCS payment levels.
Agenda Item 5: update by Minister on PIU study
Subject to final confirmation you can tell the Group that No 10 proposes to announce the study
publicly on 19 October, and that we will circulate to members of the Group copies of the press
notice and the terms of reference as soon as we have them. In the meantime, you are due to
have an initial meeting with the PIU team shortly, and the team thereafter hope to see the
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CWU, the NFSP and the CMA for separate initial briefings. They will have already have made
contact with the Post Office since they are anxious that their experts should gain access to the
Post Office computer model of the counters network as quickly as possible.
Agenda item 6: future work programme
a) substance
I suggest that the next meeting of the Group should be mainly devoted to a session with the
Benefits Agency (Alistair Darling has already agreed to this) to gain a better understanding first
of how the BA see progression to ACT evolving between now and 2003; second how they now
envisage the migration between 2003 - 2005 with a view to minimising the damage to POCL;
and third BA’s latest estimates of the numbers who, in the event, cannot be migrated to bank
accounts for one reason and another, and how these are to be handled.
Beyond that, there is probably a case for the Horizon Working Group to put forward an agreed
paper to the PIU, though individual members may also wish to input into the study separately.
Third, it was agreed at an exlier meeting that the parties should work up a media strategy to
project the counters business to the outside world, and to existing and prospective clients in
particular, in as positive a light as possible. This needs to be taken forward. Fourth, it was
agreed at the last meeting that the Post Office, the CWU, the CMA and the NFSP should meet
to work up strategies for the Group on Government Gateway , on links with other companies
that could add value to the business, and on retention and improvement of the core business.
This work also needs to be tnken forward.
b) meetings
Derek Hodgson was anxious that we should use the next meeting to agree a series of future
dates for meetings. Your o.\n preference is to agree within the Group on the frequency with
which meetings should bc I:cld, and then leave it to the secretariat to ring around and find
convenient dates. You wil! want to avoid spending meeting time on coordinating diaries which
could be better used discussing substance. As to frequency, once a month might be optimum at
this stage, though would probably be difficult to sustain later on.
DTI Posts Directorate
8.10.99