POL00006837
POL00006837
I visited this office on Wednesday 6th May, which was the last day of Trading Period 1.
I began by allowing Mr. Hedges to balance in his own way and I suggested any
improvements as he went.
Basically, he was doing everything he should be and only a couple of small tweaks were
necessary.
There certainly wasn't anything being done to explain his high losses.
His balance for the week was pretty close but he was still showing an overall loss of
£2882.21 for TPO1.
This amount is on top of the amounts of £3957.19 & £1048.40 from Trading periods 11
& 12, which he has previously asked to central centrally.
So he will now have an outstanding debt in the region of £7887.80.
I made a full search of the office in case cash had fallen behind draws, under tables, behind
the safe etc. etc.
I also went through two bins full of rubbish to ensure that no cash had fallen into them.
Paperwork in these bins was dated back beyond the period in question so it's obvious that
they had not been emptied recently.
I then looked at paperwork for period 11 (05/02/09 - 04/03/09) and period 12 (05/03/09
- 01/04/09).
I looked for things like: strangely high AP receipts, lottery cheque accounting, cheque
despatch figures, Rems and anything else which I thought could have an impact.
But I have to report that I could find absolutely no reason for the losses in this office.
Access to the secure area is apparently restricted to the Sub-Postmaster and his daughter
and there would seem to be little or no possibility of unauthorised access.
Mr. Hedges is convinced that there must be a problem with Horizon, which is generating
these discrepancies, and said that there are other sub-postmasters who have experienced
the same problems.
His next course of action is going to be to talk with the Federation Of Sub-Postmasters to
seek any help they can provide.
I will now speak with Cathy MacDonald, in P & B accounting, to see if she can throw any
more light on to this.
David Crawt