Company Secret
Minutes of the meeting of the Board of ICL Pathway Limited
Held at 09.00 a.m. on Tuesday 9'* May 2000
At 26 Finsbury Square, London, EC2A 1SL
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Present:
In attendance:
Mr R Christou (Chairman)
Mr T K Todd
Mr T Escudier
Mr H Kurokawa
Mr A E Oppenheim
Mr M Stares
Mr R F Scott (Secretary)
Mr H Hirata
Mr S Muchow
Apologies for absence were received from Mr J H Bennett
Action by:
Pathway/pathmins09May00
Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the meeting held on 23"! February, with
several amendments, were approved as a correct record
and signed by the Chairman.
Managing Director’s Report
Mr Stares introduced his report, updating the written
paper circulated and there was discussion. Points noted:
a)
The Board congratulated the Management Team for
all the work in producing the highly satisfactory
results for the year. Mr Oppenheim’s contribution
on commercial issues generally, with PWC and on
the De La Rue settlement was praised in particular.
Mr Stares reported the roll-out was going very well at
more than 300 _ individual Post Office
implementations per week. The principal issues
related to helpdesk and other service issues which
were addressed later in the meeting. However these
issues were not, in Mr Stares judgement, affecting the
improving relationship with the Post Office.
Mr Stares
Mr Stares
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c)
d)
e)
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Ci3/VPN development was on track and had been
rolled out successfully. Ch4 was being tightly
managed through critical phases and CSR+ roll-out
was planned to begin 6"* September.
Mr Stares distributed a report on business and
technical conformance test coverage and key
programme milestones. The figures produced
showed that the system was stressed but much
activity was successfully taking place. Mr Stares said
the most important programme milestones in the
near future were user confidence test completion
around beginning of August and the CSR+ (C14) roll-
out decision at about the beginning of September.
Mr Stares referred to headcount issues, which had
been highlighted at the last Board meeting.
He circulated figures. Considerable progress was
being achieved in recruiting ATC staff for new
positions and a significant reduction in numbers of
freelancers was planned in the light of the
considerable difference in cost between permanent
staff and freelancers. So far, Pathway was being more
successful in obtaining permanent new hires than in
replacing freelancers already in place. Engagement
between Pathway and ICL’s A&TC was now much
better and further improvements would arise from
this.
The Board considered the headcount requirements
for testing and integration work. There would be
significant falls in the Pathway requirements at
various times within the next 12 months and
Mr Stares said the choice was whether to reduce
people, and hire them later with the heavy risk that
the skills might not be obtainable easily, or for ICL to
set up a unit for testing and implementation of the
nature required, which would cover ICL operations
other than Pathway including in particular the PFI
contracts, Transys and others. Mr Stares would
continue his discussions with Clive Fenton and would
also broaden the issue to involve Ian Hardacre’s
areas. The matter would be considered at the next
meeting but Mr Stares would produce a paper for the
EMC with the joint recommendations, prior to the
next Board meeting.
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Mr Stares
Mr Oppenheim/
Secretary
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f)
8)
h)
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On new business, significant work was going forward
although there were some delays on the proposed
network banking timescales. These may have arisen
out of some tensions within the Post Office. It was
expected a Post Office Board decision would be taken
in June on network banking and we would then know
if there was a go-ahead. There were resource and
other implications in this for Pathway. Mr Stares
would prepare a value assessment of the scale of the
ongoing network business, and ensure that this was
recorded on the ICL Siebel system.
ERA was a major investment for the Post Office and
it was not yet clear how quickly the Post Office
would push forward with it.
Mr Stares ended by referring to the investment which
he believed was already producing improved press
coverage and was also improving the ICL Pathway
internal and external image and promotion of
Horizon.
Mr Todd added some comments including that he
had been advised that Post Office confidence in the
Pathway team was “at a high’.
The Board discussed the activities of the National
Audit office enquiry into the changes in the Horizon
contract and project. Mr Oppenheim reported that
the second draft of the report did not appear to
satisfactorily reflect the changes ICL Pathway had, for
reasons of accuracy and balance, requested.
However he was more hopeful regarding the third
draft. The Board emphasised that the report should
be published before the summer Parliamentary
Recess.
It was agreed to try to set a meeting date in late June
with Sir John Bourne, of the National Audit Office,
so that he and Mr Christou (possibly Mr Todd also)
could meet. The meeting would be arranged through
the good offices of Mr Gillibrand, ICL’s non-executive
director and Mr Oppenheim and the secretary would
arrange the date.
The Finance Director’s Report was noted.
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Mr Muchow
Mr Stares
Mr Muchow
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Service Levels
Mr Muchow gave a presentation on service levels,
circulating slides showing “key service performance
metrics”.
The principal issue was that service level agreements
were not being met and service activity, particularly on
helpdesks, was deteriorating. Mr Christou emphasised
that this was a serious matter. If matters were not
improved and we under performed to the service level
agreements for three quarters, then the Post Office may
have the right to terminate the contract.
Mr Muchow went through the various metrics explaining
the service activities beginning with satisfactory progress
on the three major acceptance incidents which had been
solved before acceptance had taken place.
When the seriousness of the position became known,
a Red Alert had been called by ICL OSD at the request of
ICL Pathway. OSD were taking urgent action including a
review of the management of the helpdesk activity.
However after discussion the Board agreed that this
action might not be sufficient. This was the second time
a red alert had been called on service performance and a
wider ranging review was needed. The issue was
primarily related to staffing - finding and retaining
enough of the right kind of helpdesk people. ICL
Pathway believed the situation would be improved by
the implementation of technology voice response (whilst
not allowing callers to wait too long) and the Post Office
was allowing a pilot of this to go ahead. Mr Kurokawa
said that more action should be taken to classify the
various reasons for calls to the service centres in order
that the response both in time and expertise of the
advice, could be improved.
It was agreed that Mr Muchow would produce a chart of
the organisation structure and turnover rates in the
various categories of staff. This and other metrics would
be integrated into the regular ICL PFI update reporting
so that it could receive top management focus
continuously. Mr Muchow would arrange to let Mr
Kurokawa and Fujitsu know if there were specific areas
on which Fujitsu’s help was needed.
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Mr Stares/
Mr Muchow
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Mr Stares
Mr Stares
Mr Stares
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Company Secret
Mr Muchow was congratulated on the metrics/slides for
his report. They would be produced, for every Board
meeting in future for the time being and he would
present them.
Electronic Business Development
Mr Christou referred to a meeting he had held with
Messrs Sweetman and Dykes of the Post Office which led
to the conclusion that the Post Office was somewhat
overwhelmed by ebusiness possibilities, was behind
many other organisations and would not necessarily be
moving particularly quickly both in turning the Post
Office internally into an ebusiness organisation or in
relation to its external customers. Mr Stares added that
he had concluded along similar lines.
Mr Todd said that from ICL’s point of view it was not
necessarily a bad thing if one or more strategic customers
were proceeding more slowly than others but he
emphasised that ICL Pathway had to keep very closely in
touch with Post Office developments to avoid
competitors appearing on the scene. Perhaps the way to
do this was through a “bottom-up” approach of engaging
in smaller projects further down the decision making
process in the Post Office whilst continuing to maintain
good relationships at the top level. ICL’s chief
technology officer Andrew Boswell, had_ recently
masterminded a plan for e[CL and Mr Stares would try to
ensure he was given the opportunity to explain his
thinking to Post Office top management, perhaps
Mr Sweetman in particular.
Mr Kurokawa requested that the next Board review the
position on development activities needed in the Horizon
project and on the HR aspects, formation of development
teams etc. Mr Todd asked that prior to the Board
meeting, Mr Stares circulate a short paper with the plan
for network banking development and any problems
anticipated.
Dates of Next Meetings
It was agreed, particularly in the light of the pressures on
the project that the Board should continue to meet on
the day of each of the planned ICL ISC meetings.
Therefore meetings for the rest of the year would be:
15 August
04 October
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29 November
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