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STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
FOR USE OF NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OFFICERS ONLY
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SUB-POSTMASTERS
REPORT OF THE
NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
MEETING
held on
4th and 5th JUNE 2001
at
THE GRIMSTOCK COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL
WARWICKSHIRE
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Report of a Meeting of the
National Executive Council
Held on 4" and 5th June 2001
at The Grimstock Country House Hotel, Warwickshire
Present Mr A Butlin - National President and Chairman
Mr M Baker Mr D Milner
Mrs I Bethel Mr J Morris
Mr M Challinor Mr J Peberdy
Mr M Darvill Mrs S Reeves
Mr J Jannetta Mr M Roger
Mrs P M Jenkins Mr J Willshaw
Mr C Jones
Mr M Jones
Mrs J Kendall
In Attendance: Mr C Baker General Secretary
Mr K Davis Assistant General Secretary I
Mrs K Davis Assistant General Secretary I
Al REPORTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS
Special Executive Council Meeting held on 13th May 2001
Post Conference Meeting held on 16th May 2001
Executive Council Meeting held on the 4th and 5th June 2001
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* The Minutes of these meetings had been circulated and were approved.
A/2 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE REPORTS
THE GENERAL SECRETARY apologised that he had not got the Resolutions
and Action Points to the Committee but confirmed that it would be done in the
future. The Decisions were important in the Minutes and that there were
records of them.
~~
1. POST OFFICE BOARD PO BD
1. (a) New Board Member Consignia PO BD
THE CHAIRMAN said he had nothing to add to the papers which had been
circulated
THE GENERAL SECRETARY said that he had been contacted by Allan
Leighton. He said that he wanted to come and speak at Conference next
year. The last conversation that they had had was about a certain Managing
Director who did not enjoy everyone’s acclaim, whom Allan Leighton had now
met and agreed with THE GENERAL SECRETARY that this Managing
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Director would not be in his position very much longer. Allan Leighton was a
retailer and to have an accountant in charge of a retail industry would not fit
well, THE GENERAL SECRETARY thought that he was very turned on and
that he meant to make a difference. He said that this man intended to be a
real mover and shaker in the Post Office. He said that man was dynamic and
they were not used to having dynamic Board members.
MR JANNETTA commented that the man was a non Executive Director and
would not have much power.
2. GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS PO PZ
2. (a) Mori Poll Results/Letter from the Prime Minister PO PZ
2(b) Mori Press Release PO PZ
THE CHAIRMAN said that these two items had been circulated and he had no I
further comment to make. I
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3. (b) Future Campaign Activity PO PZ 01
THE CHAIRMAN asked where they were all to go from here to make sure the t
commitments they all wanted were firmly nailed down and, if the previous
Government was returned, he thought that there would be a Cabinet reshuffle .
with a new person in the position. It would be a case of getting them to (
restate the financial commitment, to stop the Treasury earmarking monies in
different directions, to make sure that the bigger cost to them with Universal
Bank was going to be there. One of the good signals he took from Stephen
Byers, when he addressed Conference, was that money could be available
from the start of the financial year April 2002.
THE GENERAL SECRETARY reported that he was seeing the NFWI in
Cardiff, and that he had got a big ‘thank-you’ for them. As far as the
campaigning activity was concerned he said they needed to take stock once
the new Government was in place — it was an assumption that the Labour
Party was going to be returned. If they were, it looked as if Stephen Byers
would go to Education; they might well get Lord Gus MacDonald who had
responsibility for Transport at the moment This could be good news,
because he could not speak in the House of Commons he could only speak in
the House of Lords. This might mean Allan Johnson would be kept on, and
he might be promoted with his own ministry. It was important that ia
involvement was retained with a high-powered group of Ministers. If Stephen
Byers and Allan Johnson were lost, then they would have to start from the
beginning again. The other name which had been linked was that of Alastair
Darling.
3. (c) Correspondence with Allan Johnson, MP PO PZ 01
Nothing to report.
3. (d) Climate Change Levy PO PZ 01
Nothing to report.
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3. (e) Government General Practitioner PO PZ01
THE CHAIRMAN reported that it was going to take a long while to get this
name from their minds and ‘Your Guide’ in its place. The most important thing
to note was the Pilot was due to take place and everything was working
extremely well towards it. Subpostmasters in Leicester were extremely co-
operative and looking forward to it. Those who had seen the kit at
Conference, one of the things that was perhaps a good message, was that
they have had to very much manage down the expectancies of the number of
people who were queuing as stakeholders to get on to what was their GGP. It
took a long while for the Government to finally give its sanction and were then
extremely keen to get it up and running before the General Election.
Dave Waltho and the team were making another bid for more money. The
Pilot was going to be a very much shrunken version. Local County Councils,
including Leicestershire CC, were saddened that they were not getting half of
what they wanted on to it but that was the way it had had to be. They have
had regular meetings and the team were managing this very well. There were
a number of people who wanted to use the product but they have had to
prove the concept, prove it worked, prove that people would pay for it in the
future and that was where the work had to go forward. He asked if he could
therefore put a health warning around information which had been circulated,
because it had got fairly big confidentiality tags.
The project had now been let. The Government ‘Gateway’ and the Consignia
team had let implementation of the project to PON mainly using ex-Horizon
people; ICL Pathway and Romec. All the offices in Leicester had been
surveyed to see what kind of original kit they would get . They were on to
second surveys and all those offices had already been given a survey date, a
date for that work to be done and a date when the kit was going to go in.
There was a road show in Leicester on 1 April, There was a briefing on 10
June in Leicester. Training slots had been allotted to accommodate staff.
The User Group and Focus Groups were working well and they were listening
to everyone. They were really going at this with ‘can do’ mentality.
MRS SALLY REEVES said that at Mr Byers’ visit last time he said that they
were going to draw down £10 million extra for Government GGP. At that time
it was not sure if this was new money or the second year — now obviously this
was the second year money that was coming down. Did that mean that the
Post Office was then going to have to go out and bid for more money further
down the line for the actual roll-out, because that £10 million was slotted in as
part of the on-going roll-out money?
The other question she asked was that at the end of the trial period there was
an evaluation session. Did they know who the constituent members of this
central evaluation team were likely to be, either internal within the Post Office
and Government or external bodies as well?
THE CHAIRMAN answered the second point first, there was a User Group
which actually consisted of five members of which he was one. This group
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met every three weeks and at the next meeting one of the forward Agenda
Items was to be how they were going to evaluate it totally. There was
external DTI evaluation, there was a company employed to do this. The
internal evaluation a) how they got the information from us and b) how the
Federation fed into the evaluation process was all in there. GGP considered
that the Federation was even more important than PON. They had already
done exit interviews with customers at Post Offices in Leicestershire to find
out what their expectancy of this would be. The Pilot was due to start on 17
July when four pre-pilot offices were due to go live.
With regard to the money, to his knowledge there was an expectancy as long
as there was roll out; he thought that it would become extra money, and that
this was what Consignia were expecting.
MR MARK BAKER asked that when they got to roll out would the training be
compulsory the same way as it was for Horizon and Customer First etc. and
who would dictate where the service went and what level of service went into
which office?
THE CHAIRMAN answered that the current situation of training for those
Subpostmasters in the pilot was paid for and therefore he had not heard of
anyone unwilling fo let anyone go. Was it going to be compulsory? The
Federation over the years had a theory that training should be mandatory but
paid for properly. So whether this was an opportunity for that he did not know.
It was at the moment £4.50 per hour which Subpostmasters felt was a
reasonable rate and there was £90 rolled into the money for the
subpostmaster to be trained. It would be in negotiation for roll out.
The second thing was at what level; currently in the pilot there had not really
been too much of what the business wanted, mainly what space was
available. The only caveats around the pilot had been what space the
subpostmaster was able to give and not the other way round. He supposed
the true answer was how well they negotiated the future money as opposed to
pilot money and therefore if that was dictated, if their experience of the pilot
was wrong and they had to re-think how they got the money for it then that
depended of course if it was clients who were paying as opposed to how
much Government money was going to be there. There could be a situation
where a client would dictate how many he wanted to do something.
Something over 90% of the offices in the trial fell in the categories B1 and B2.
MR JANNETTA asked how did the relationship between POPOS panels and
GGP equipment fit it? The Post Office had written to Subpostmasters about
POPOS panels and those who signed up for POPOS panels, became
contracted. Could it be ensured that PON would not become bolshi when the
subpostmaster made a choice between a POPOS panel and the space for the
kit.
THE CHAIRMAN replied that POPOS did not stand in the way of GGP. There
was no argument about this. It had been approached very sensibly. At roll
out it would have to be cleared out properly and was still voluntary for
Subpostmasters.
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~
MRS JENKINS asked that proper training with proper accreditation was first
talked about for GGP. How far was that down the line or was that something
which was not going to happen?
THE CHAIRMAN said tomorrow the User Group had been asked to a full
presentation training session at Birmingham. He could probably answer this
in two weeks time. He was led to understand that there was still a desire to
get accreditation.
Irrelevant
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I
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i : I
6. COUNTER AUTOMATION PC NW 06 01
Nothing to report. ,
t
MRS REEVES reported that at the beginning of the automation of Horizon, an
office was allowed to work manually and input later when the system went
down. If the system went down and required a replacement part, by a
Horizon engineer, irrespective of one or two days, the office closed. There
was then a resultant product shortfall in the product payments for that office.
Was this the way forward?
THE CHAIRMAN did not know the answer and said that he would try to sort it
out whilst at the meeting.
MRS JENKINS stated that the problems experienced with Horizon were
taised at Conference. It was promised on the platform that there would be a
national forum to look at the problem. Were we any way nearer to getting this
set up, and how was it going to work?
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THE CHAIRMAN said that they should have a user group, a national forum to
deal with Horizon errors and problems with the system. It was an action point
from 26 February.
MR JANETTA suggested an idea that if a set Horizon kit could be installed at
Shoreham. Nobody at Shoreham had ever worked on Horizon; it could not be
beyond the realms of possibility for this to be installed and somebody there
trained to use the system.
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Hl iS
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Al16 ANY OTHER BUSINESS
MR DARVILL mentioned some new rules involving PACE. He was trying to
get solicitors to write paper for the Federation to be circulated to the Executive
Council. It appeared that if a Subpostmaster was questioned by the
Investigation Branch he was told that anything he said would be taken into
Court of Law - but unless a Police Officer was present no inference could be
taken into a Court of Law — and a Subpostmaster was not entitled to Legal Aid
unless a Police Officer was present.
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MRS BETHELL said it was her pleasure to be a new Executive Officer asked
to give a vote of thanks to the new National President and she extended a
warm and genuine thank you to him for the way in which he had chaired the
Executive Council Meeting. Executive Officers looked forward to meeting in
July to continue their worthwhile and productive debates.
THE CHAIRMAN thanked those present for the help, friendship and
generosity they had shown and closed the meeting. _
DIANA DENTON i
GILL PAYNE ;
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