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Witness Name: Nicholas James Read
Statement No.: 1
Dated: 31 August 2021
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
First Witness Statement of Nicholas James Read
I, Nicholas James Read, will say as follows:-
1. I am the Chief Executive Officer of Post Office Limited ("POL"). I am
authorised on behalf of POL to make this witness statement in response to
the 17 August 2021 letter from the Solicitor to the Post Office Horizon IT
Inquiry (the “Inquiry"), pursuant to rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006,
requesting a short witness statement from an appropriate person within
POL with responsibility for administering (or with sufficient knowledge of)
the Historical Shortfall Scheme (the "Scheme") (the "Rule 9 Request").
2. The Rule 9 Request contains five questions in relation to the Scheme. In
order to assist the Inquiry, I identify where I deal with each question through
the reference "Q[X]", where "X" is the question number as listed in the Rule
9 Request.
3. When I refer in this statement to "POL", "we" and/or "our", I intend this to
mean POL.
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I joined POL in September 2019 as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to that, I
was Group CEO at Extra Energy and prior to that CEO at Nisa Retail
Limited. I have over 25 years of consumer and commercial experience and
have previously held senior roles at Tesco, Vodafone, HBOS, Lloyds
Banking Group and Thomas Cook.
As Chief Executive of POL, I have ultimate responsibility for the Scheme
and so am the appropriate person to make this statement. For the purposes
of giving this witness statement, I have had information shown to me to
assist with answering the questions of which I do not have direct
knowledge. Where the facts and matters in this witness statement are not
within my own knowledge, they are true to the best of my information and
belief.
The figures regarding the Scheme given in this witness statement are
current as at 13 August 2021, which ties in with our monthly reporting cycle.
The figures have been extracted from the electronic Scheme management
platform by the law firm operating the Scheme, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
("HSF"), for the purposes of the monthly reporting.
Q1 — The number of applications received under the Scheme
7.
The Scheme was launched on 1 May 2020 and has since received 2,514
applications (of which two have been subsequently withdrawn).
To provide some context for the answers below, the Scheme can be broken
down into the following 7 main stages:
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(i) Eligibility Assessment
(ii) Ineligible/withdrawn
(iii) Document Collation and Shortfall Analysis
(iv) Claim Assessment
(v) Presentation to Panel
(vi) Claim Offers Issued
(vii) Settlement Paid.
I understand that applications do not always follow through these stages
sequentially and, as a result, the overall position changes from day to day.
For example, I understand that an application might have reached the
"Claim Assessment" stage but then an issue arises which requires further
information from the applicant. I understand that the application would then
be referred back to the "Document Collation and Shortfall Analysis" stage
until that further information is obtained and the issue resolved.
Q2 - The number of applications determined
10.
I understand that 154 of the 2,514 applications have been assessed as
ineligible to join the Scheme. Applications are ineligible if they do not meet
the Eligibility Criteria as published on the Scheme's website.’ Of the
remaining applications, POL has made a total of 474 offers of
compensation.
.onepostoffice .co.uk/media/47798/historicalshorifallscheme_eligibilityeriteria_october-
(accessed on 31 August 2021).
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Q3 - Whether all the determinations have been accepted by the applicants
and, if not, what is happening in respect of those determinations which have
not been accepted
11.
12.
13.
14.
I understand that 447 of the 474 offers of compensation have been
accepted (i.e. roughly 94%).? Of the 447 accepted offers, the agreed
settlement has been paid to 437.
In terms of the remaining applicants who have received offers, they have
either failed to respond to our offer, raised queries for consideration by
POL, or rejected the offer.
Where offers have been rejected, the application will progress through the
stages of the dispute resolution procedure in accordance with the Scheme's
Terms of Reference published on the Scheme's website®.
As explained at paragraph 8 of the Terms of Reference, there are broadly
three stages of the dispute resolution procedure. The first stage is the
"Good Faith Meeting" where “at least one Post Office representative shall
meet with the Applicant by telephone and endeavour to resolve all issues
regarding any outstanding shortfalls in good faith and in a manner that
takes into account the legitimate interests of Post Office and the Applicant".
I understand that 8 of the applications have been the subject of "Good Faith
Meetings", and HSF attended each of these as POL's representative. As
yet, none have progressed to the next stage of the dispute resolution
2 I understand that as at 13 August one of these was showing as "suspended" in our monthly reporting data
3 Available here: hites://www.onepostoffice.co.uk/media/4’
but should have been showing as one of the “claims accepted"
g5/histo
shortfalischeme_ termsofreference.pdf
(accessed on 31 August 2021).
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procedure: the "Escalation Meeting" (as explained at paragraph 8.3 of the
Terms of Reference}.
Q4~ The number of applications currently under consideration
15. Excluding the ineligible and withdrawn applications, and applications where
an offer has already been made, there are 1,884 progressing through the
Scheme.
16. Using the seven stages I set out above, the progress of applications
through the Scheme can he broken down as follows:
Eligibility Assessment
IneligibleAvithdrawn
_ Document collation and Sh:
_ Analysis
I Claim Assessment
3 a
474
nn sn
I 437 (of the 474 claim offers issued)
Q5 ~ The likely time scale for the determination of all applications
47, POL is currently working towards communicating outcomes to the vast
majority (if not all) applicants by the end of 2022. We are also working to
accelerate and resalve as many as possible by late summer 2022.
Statement of Truth
Signed: I \' Nideck 6 J Reb
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