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To: ci:
SECRETARY OF STATE
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From: PORT
DAVID SIBBICK COM
DIRECTOR POSTS IBB
f Cit
Legal C
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HORIZON: TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH KEITH TODD, ICL
1. You have agreed to speak on the telephone to Keith Todd at 10.00am tomorrow
(5 March).
25 We believe that he wants to talk to you primarily about the Horizon project. He
is likely to say that
e ICL are in principle enthusiastic about pursuing the option now favoured by
Ministers (dumping the benefit payment card and migrating benefit recipients
instead to a smartcard-based Post Office bank account accessible only at post
offices); but
e they need by the end of March to satisfy first their own auditors (Price Waterhouse
Coopers) and then Fujitu’s (KPMG) that there is an ongoing project. This is hardly
surprising given the repeated rumours in the technical and other press that the
Government is close to calling for the termination of the project. If they cannot
satisfy the auditors, they will be faced with scoring a massive (around £250 million)
provision in their accounts, which will make ICL insolvent. They therefore need
urgently some form of tangible commitment to the project (or a major part thereof).
© One possible way of securing this would be for the Government to make a clear
commitment before the end of March to going ahead with the core infrastructure of
Horizon, leaving decisions about applications (ie whether to go for a smartcard-
based Post Office bank account, or for the benefit payment card) to be decided by
the end of June.
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3. You will have seen Mr McCartney’s recommendation to you today on the
timing of the publication of the Post Office White Paper, and the requirement that this
imposes on the timing of the next phase of Horizon project. It requires heads of
agreement on the project as a whole to be reached with ICL before the end of April.
This is too slow to help ICL with their auditors, whilst ICL’s end-June timetable for
final decisions on the way forward is too slow for our requirements for the White
Paper. If you are content with Mr McCartney’s recommendations, I suggest that you
make the points listed in the attached “lines to take” in response to Mr Todd.
4. Keith Todd is coming in to see Alistair Macdonald at 8.30 am tomorrow
morning. I shall be present at that meeting, and if there are any further points, or any
changes or additions needed to the lines to take overleaf, I will update your office
orally immediately after that meeting.
DAVID SIBBICK
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