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CIRCULATION: NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL A10(A) PC NW 06 01
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National Federation of SubPosemastersI
Evelyn House,
22 Windlesham Gardens,
16 September 2004
Shoreham-by-Sea,
West Sussex BN43 SAZ
CIRCULATION: NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL!
General Secretary: COUN BAKER,
Senior Assistant General Secretary
Kevin Dass
Assistant General Secretary
‘MARILYN STODDART
Dear Executive Officer
RE: HORIZON FAILURES
Further to my previous circulation of the 26" July, please find enclosed the response
received from Gareth Hall. I will continue to push on the issue of recompense
payments particularly.
You will be aware that the same topic was flagged up on the letters page of
September's ‘the Subpostmaster, when David Mills gave a ‘straight from the top’
response.
This was followed up by a letter to David Mills of 2"? September, which I also
enclose, together with the recent response received from David Miller.
You will see that a review is underway and that part of that review is an evaluation of
back-up service options. David Miller and David Mills have promised to keep us
informed of progress.
Yours sincerely
MARILYN STODDART
Assistant General Secreta:
Encl.
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re
Marilyn Stoddart
National Federation of Subpostmasters
Evelyn House
22 Windlesham Gardens
SHOREHAM BY SEA
West Sussex
BN43 5AZ 2 September 2004
POST
OFFICE
Dear Marilyn
Horizon System
“an essential part of everyday life”
Over the last couple of months we have had various discussions and written
correspondence concerning the reliability of the horizon system. Whilst I have
no further news to give you I did want to write and inform you of the current
position concerning horizon failures.
The first issue concerns recompense payments to subpostmasters. As I
informed you at our last meeting we are reviewing our position concerning
payments. This review is ongoing. As soon as I have any information
concerning our future intentions I'll contact you.
I have asked for a situation report concerning phone calls from branches
regarding service breakdowns. In the twelve week period up to the16 August
the number of phone calls reporting horizon breakdowns have shown an
increase, The number of cails relating specifically to line faults have not
increased and the subpostmaster re-booting the horizon system rectified the
majority of the faults reported.
95% of calls relating to on-line services are resolved within 48 hours (90% of
these are resolved within 24 hours). Instances where branches are off line for
longer than three days are uncommon and are normally as a result of major
problems occurring with the BT line requiring roads to be dug up.
Our figures show that only 0.4% of our branches are off line at any one time.
We do appreciate that this is of no comfort to customers and subpostmasters
if their branch is one of the 0.4%. We are actively looking at technical
solutions to provide a back up facility and also reviewing the helpdesk
procedures in updating branches when things do go wrong.
Post O
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Horizon system
2 September 2004
I will keep you informed as I receive further information about horizon system
problems. Please get back to me if you require any further information at this
stage.
NFSP Liaison Manager
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Marilyn Stoddart
National Federation of Subpostmasters
Evelyn House
22 Windlesham Gardens
Shoreham by Sea
WEST SUSSEX
BN43 5AZ
15.09.04 os
Re: Horizon Failure Ul Byercons rust
Thank you for your letter of 2"4 September addressed to David Mills.
Overall Horizon systems availability is good, there are nevertheless
issues which we have under active review and I will update you on
these as we make progress.
Our on line systems continue to perform within expected parameters
and these parameters have been set in line with industry standards.
For example the service availability that we have planned and deliver
for banking and e -top ups is in line with that provided by the banks
and other retail outlets.
Understandably there fs a perception that the problems are on the
increase. This is because over time the number of branches that have
experienced a problem has, as you would expect increased and as the
volume of on line business has increased the impact of failures has
increased, I repeat that overall system availability is very high and
within the parameters to which the system was built.
When a system goes down in a branch a process of investigation is
initiated in order to identify where the problem has occurred. The
problem could be with the equipment within the branch, within the
telecommunications network, within Horizon or within a number of back
end systems provided by banks, by mobile phone operators and our
debit card service provider. Once the point of failure is identified the
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Re: Horizon Failure
appropriate supplier can investigate the problem and having diagnosed
it provide an appropriate fix.
It is not possible when an incident occurs to give precise information
about time to fix ahead of understanding where the problem lies. Of
course in some instances the source of the problem is obvious and its
possible quite quickly to indicate time to fix but in other instances
diagnosis can be protracted.
Where the service is lost at an individual branch it can take 5 or more
days to fix. Branches have been warned of this when the faults have
been reported. However, in most instances the performance is
significantly better than that, 95% of such failure are fixed within 48
hours.
The BT element of the service is regulated. BT ‘s promise is to attend
to all reported incidents by close of business the day after the incident
is reported. However, in a small number of cases the BT resolution
might involve digging up the road which can lead to loss of service for
several weeks.
Unfortunately rather than getting the message that the large majority of
these problems are resolved within 48 hours, with many fixed
considerably quicker than that, there is a widely held perception that
these issues take five or more days to fix and that this interval is driven
by a negotiated service level with BT, There is room here for us to
communicate more crisply and ensure thet the right messages are
received by our branches.
As you quite rightly suggest the starting point towards improvement is
to understand the profile of failures. This work is in progress. Given
our understanding of the scope of the problem and an equally
important understanding of how this profile will evolve over time we can
then address potential solutions.
Many of those solutions involve significant additional cost. There are
few if any solutions that completely resolve a particular type of problem.
For example enhancing the timescale within which BT have to respond
would make only a marginal impact on those instances that require
work on underground cabling. For certain problems rather than
improving supplier response time it may be more cost effective to
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Re: Horizon Failure
provide a back up service e.g. where there is a telecoms failure provide
a back up telephone line over a different network. We are working
through the options, including a number that whilst not immediately
available will be within the next few months, carefully evaluating them
in order to identify those which give us the best improvement.
We will keep you in touch with developments on a regular basis.
David W Miller
Chief Operating Officer
Post Office Ltd
Operations
80-86 Old Street
London
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2 September 2004
Evelyn House,
22 Windlesham Gardens,
Mr David Mills Shoreham-by-Sea,
Chief Executive West Sussex BN43 5AZ
Post Office Ltd Telephone:I fi
80-86 Old Street
London
EC1V 9NN
Genoral Secretary: COLIN BAKER
Senior Asststant General Secretary i
Kewin Davis I
Dear David Assistant General Secretary i
MaRnyN STODOAKT
RE: HORIZON FAILURE
I know that you share the NFSP’s concerns over the impact that continual Horizon failures
are having on the Network - on Subpostmasters morale and customers confidence in our
ability to deliver a reliable service - and I am aware of your discussions with Colin Baker on
this. The selected ‘Straight from the Top’ letter published in the current ‘the Subpostmaster’
journal features your response on this very subject,to Subpostmaster, Vijay Patel.
It does seem that the incidence of failures affecting individuals is increasing. I regularly
receive reports week by week from Subpostmasters whose business has suffered and
whose customers are aghast not only at the immediate inconvenience, but also that such
little information can be given as to when the problem might be addressed and the service be
once again resumed.
I have enclosed a copy of a letter received from Subpostmaster Isla Craig in Crianlarich,
which is a clear illustration of the problems faced by Subpostmasters and Post Office
customers when these breakdowns occur.
I will respond to Ms Craig and refer her to your reply in the ‘the Subpostmaster’ journal, but
would be happy to include any further comment should you wish to add to what has already
been said. :
The time scales within the current service agreement appear to result in many branches i
being disabled for significant periods and we believe that it would be helpful to fully
understand the extent of the problem in terms of ‘down time’ within the Network. i
Establishing the average number of failures per week, and the duration of those failures over I
say a three-month period would, we believe, inform discussions on possible solutions.
We are extremely anxious that customer confidence in the brand and the service offered by
the brand remains intact and welcome the review, which will report to your Executive
Committee for decision, before the year end. We look forward to your updates for future
publication in the Subpostmaster’.
MARILYN STODDART
Assistant General Secretary
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Fors cg
a ; n Station Road
~ Grianlarich Store ssn abe
Yan
Licensed General Store & Post Office
Email: shop@,
www.crianlarichstore.co.uk
Crianlarich Post Office
FAD Code: 1138685
Colin Baker
General Secretary, NFSP
Evelyn House
22 Wndlesham Gardens
Shoreham-by-Sea
West Sussex BN43 5AZ
24" August 2004
Dear Colin,
Failure of Horizon ISDN Line
IT was without any online services on my Horizon system from 9am on Wednesday 18" August - 11am
on Monday 23™ August. This is, I beliéve, following a thunderstorm in the area on the evening of
Tuesday 17" August.
I reported the failure to the Horizon helpdesk on Wednesday 18% August. However it was 5% days
later before the fault was resolved. The delay in restoring services was even longer for my POCA
holders, as the BT fault was fixed less than an hour before the national POCA failure, leaving POCA
holders without access to their money for a total of 6 consecutive days,
T have been told that the response contract negotiated between POL and BT allows for 5 working days
to respond to the fault.
This js a totally and utterly unacceptable length of time to wait. We are continually being urged to push
online banking ~ but are not being give the backup support to do this effectively. It is imperative that
the contract with BT is re-negotiated to provide a response time within hours, not days. I urge you to
take this up with POL as a matter of urgency. We, as Subpostmasters cannot carry out our roles
effectively if we are not given adequate, and reliable, tools and support for the job,
Tam a smal, but fairly busy, rural sub post office in a remote location. There is one part time office 5
miles away, and the nearest full time office is 13 miles. The nearest bank, and bank machine is 13
miles away, and public transport is almost non-existent. My banking and benefit customers were left
without any access to thelr money, for almost a week. The NBSC response of “use another office” is
simply not an option for the majority of my customers.
With the impact of Direct Payment cutting deeper every day, something as fundamental to our business
as banking transactions must be given top priority.
IT look forward to a response from you on this matter, and trust that I will be able to rely on a speedier
response from BT, next time the ISDN line fails.
Yours sincerely
Isla Craig
Cc Margaret Gillespie, Scottish Central Branch secretary. i