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Post Office Compensation Programme Board Minutes
Chair: Rob Brightwell
14 September 2023 — 10:00 - 11:00
Programme Board Members:
Carl Creswell (CC) - Chair - Director, Business Resilience, DBT
Ciara Lawrence (CL) — Senior Policy Advisor, DBT Post Office Policy (deputising for Beth White)
Rob Brightwell (RB) — Deputy Director, DBT Post Office Policy
Patrick Kilgarriff (PK) - Director, DBT Legal
Kirsty Wedderspoon (KW) - Deputy Director, DBT Finance
Matt Barnes (MB) - Head of Business & Trade Spending and Strategy, HMT (deputising for Joshua
Fleming)
Ellen Wasden (EWa) - Senior Economist, DBT (deputising for Monique Ebell)
Other Attendees:
Milo Kershaw (MK) - Policy Advisor, Business and Trade Spending, HMT (Observer)
Simon Recaldin (SR) — Remediation Unit, POL (Observer)
Joshua Scott (JS) - Head of GLO Compensation, DBT (Observer)
Rob Mackie (RM) - Executive Director, UKGI (Observer)
James Gourlay (JG) - Assistant Director, UKGI (Observer)
Carlos Martinex (CM) — Project Manager, DBT (Observer)
Apologie:
Beth White (BW) - Deputy Director, DBT Post Office Policy
Monique Ebell (ME) - Deputy Director, Business Resilience and Industry Sectors Analysis, DBT
Joshua Fleming (JF) - Deputy Director, HMT
Note:
Agenda Item Discussion, Actions and Decisions
1. Action Log IPBO13: EW discussing with central M&E team. SR to point her to the
right people in POL.
IPBO20: JL to provide a detailed email to Ministers on plans for Comms
opportunities moving forward
2. Scheme Data IRB explained an updated versions will be issued with OC
jannouncement. CC requested that the HSS data is aligned.
IS encouraged officials to be clear about terminology —e.g. the use of
interim, and not partial, payments consistently.
3. Comms IRB explained this the list is regularly reviewed by Strat Comms.
(CC noted the OC announcement was pending HMT approval. Should it
be approved POL will be notified. SR requested that POL comms be
aligned.
4. Assurance on IRB explained the rationale regarding the proposal to seek assurance on
Fairness of Offers __ {the fairness of offers, noting that this could be delivered in a phased
approach. CC clarified that engagement on this could be on a quarterly
regular basis.
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IRB noted that fairness is a subjective issue, and proposed that in the
irst instance it should be claimants and/or their legal representatives
that should be consulted.
IRM queried what DBT would be asking stakeholders to be assessed
against, noting all cases across the schemes have been assessed
extensively.
ICC noted that it would be impracticable to reopen all cases. LG agreed
land noted two means of looking at fairness: compensation outcome
jand internal consistency.
IS raised that the options considered must be data protection
compliant. RB noted that the reviewer could review anonymised data.
ILG and JG considered an open survey would not be helpful and
jpresents risks. PK agreed noting that the outcome must be an
jobjective as practicable. JS agreed citing the current perception of the
schemes being delivered.
IPK flagged that there is a difference between "my lawyer advised me
to accept this as a good offer" and "I think it is fair" which should be
considered.
SR raised the need for a reviewer absoSlutely independent of PO to
jundertake the work. SR offered to share previous work POL had done
ion the issue including metrics if helpful.
IG proposed a process whereby (1) claimants’ solicitors are asked for
ithe issues on the process / principles (2) principles are checked via
sample (3) any potential issues raised and shared (4) set out appeals
land/or top-ups if required process.
5. _X-Cutting Issues
INo comment
6. AOB and Close
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