POL00028730
POL00028730
MrJ Bennett
Managing Director
ICL Pathway Limited
Forest Road
Feltham
Middlesex TW13 7EJ 20' May 1999
Dear John
Re: BA/POCL Project
Further to my letter of 18k May 1999, I set out a more detailed response to your letter
of 12th May 1999.
We reject your allegations that we are in breach of our obligations to Pathway under
the Related Agreements. We do not agree that all of the CCNs listed in the schedule
to your letter are waiting for a response from us.
You have claimed that there have been a number of changes to the project which
have been made outside the change control procedure. As we have consistently
informed you, any reliance by Pathway on such changes is made at its own risk.
With regard to the £8m which you say HMT has agreed to pay Pathway, POCL is not
a party to any agreement with ICL or ICL Pathway pursuant to which it is obliged to
make such payment.
We continue to reserve all of our rights in respect of your past performance of our
. contracts and reject any claim that we have waived any such rights.
In light of the above, our response to your request that we reconsider paying
Pathway on a time and materials basis is the same as that in our letter to you of 30
April 1999, namely, that unless and until formally agreed otherwise, we cannot
accept any obligation to pay Pathway except on the same basis as set out in the
Related Agreements.
Yours sincerely
Dave Miller
WORD\Letters 99\ Bennett 2005a.doe
POL00028730
POL00028730
I oe,
C)
Richard Christou
Director of Commercial and Legal Affairs,
ICL
26, Finsbury Square,
London:
EC2A 1DS
20 May, 1999
Dear Richard.
Thank you for your letter of 12! May, 1999 which I received on 13" May,
attaching an invoice from ICL Pathway for £8 million (invoice number
990662).
Your invoice refers to an agreement between yourselves and Steve Robson of
the Treasury. As you will appreciate, Post Office Counters Ltd. is not a party
to that agreement, and I have to inform you that at present I am unable to
authorise payment. I suggest that you discuss any concerns you have as a
result of this situation with Steve Robson, to whom we copied your invoice
on 13th May. .
Yours sincerely,
KEITH BAINES
Head of Horizon Commercial
cc Steve Robson
David Sibbick
Tony Oppenheim
POL00028730
r
POL00028730
— 5 : I
‘ 21 MAY 799 @9:44 P.2
Vince Gaskell
Room B2506 Annex
DSS Longbenton
Benton Park Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE98 1YX
21 May 1999
Bruce McNiven
2nd Floor
King Edward Building
King Edward Street
* Once I have received a further report from the CAPS Team and Line Management at
" CAPS PROGRAMME
London ECIA 1AC
Dear Bruce
Thank you for your letter of 20 May.
As lindicated to you during our telephone conversation yesterday, the reports I have
received following the Data Centre Migration differ to the information you have now
provided in your letter about the scale of the problems that have arisen
Clearly this needs to be checked thoroughly and the underlying causes investigated,
That should always be the case in incidents of the kind that arose last week including
whether problems should have been identified carlier at the testing or implementation
rehearsal stages.
Child Benefit Centre, I will let you have a fuller response, but at this point I have no
Treason to change what I have sald previously,
21/05 '99 08:47 TX/RX NO. 2501 - P02.
POL00028730
POL00028730
—
Vince Gaskell
CAPS & Cards Programme Director
Benefits Agency
DSS Longbenton
Benton Park Road Post Office Counters Led
Newcastle upon Tyne . .
NE98 1YX . 20% May 1999
Dear Vince
Rez Treasury Discussions
We spoke yesterday about the statements made last week regarding emergency payments to card
customers. .
During our conversation you said the problem had been referred to as “potentially affecting 997
customers”. The recollection of those at the meeting from POCL is that emergency payments had, or would
be made to all 997 customers. In now appears, and you confirmed, that few payments have been made.
At the Horizon Service Review meeting yesterday, attended by BA/CAPS representatives, the position
established was that there may have been a problem in the Pathway domain that caused some payments to
be visible at the payment card helpline but not at the counter. ICL Pathway are investigating the position
and todate there have been 20 customers affected. In these circumstances emergency payments would not
necessarily arise.
In addition, 30 customers were issued with new cards caused by an erroneous codes file. This meant that
the customers card was cancelled and payments could not be collected until the new card arrived. This is
also being investigated. We do not know the implications of this for emergency payments but believe it to
below.
All of this is clearly important and requires a resolution but is some way from the position reported by you .
last week and which impacted the tone of discussions.
Our knowledge of the position up to Friday was limited to a non specific indication to our Service
Management people earlier that day of a potential problem. Apart from that, I had a discussion with Val
Curran last week when she explained the cautious approach adopted by BA/CAPS over the sign-off for the 1
Data Centre Migration activity on the weekend of 8/9" May.
If Ihave misinterpreted the position you will of course let me know, but I have to refute the impression of
the situation gained by the POCL representatives, and others, at last weeks meeting.
Yours sincerely
Bruce MeNiven
Director, Horizon Programme
cc. Stuart Sweetman Post Office Counters Led
Dave Miller King Edward Building
King Edward Street
London
ECIA TAA,
WORD\ Letters 97\ Gaskell 2005.doe. Telephone:
Pont Ons Coser at Reged nnd
(Nor 13480 Regard Oca ng Conn Bang
ang lcee Soret London (CIATAA,