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[TO GO ON POST OFFICE LETTERHEAD]
By email only: AnthonyHoopet
Sir Anthony Hooper
Chair of the Working Group
Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme
[DATE]
Dear Sir Anthony
Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme
Draft Second Sight Part Two Report ("the Draft Report")
I refer to Draft Report circulated recently by Second Sight.
You will have already seen Post Office's comments on the Draft Report which highlight a number of
material inaccuracies and deficiencies.
Post Office has on numerous occasions sought greater engagement with Second Sight to discuss its
avenues of enquiry and at the Working Group meeting on 24 July, you directed Second Sight to work
more closely with Post Office. Unfortunately, save for one meeting at the end of July 2014, Second Sight
has consistently refused to meet with us.
Even at the meeting in July, Post Office asked for early sight of the Draft Report so that it could be
reviewed prior at the meeting. Second Sight only provided a hardcopy of that document as they arrived
for the meeting, leaving no opportunity for the Draft Report to be discussed.
Second Sight has put very few questions to Post Office about Horizon or any associated issues.
Although since the outset of the Scheme, Second Sight has been tracking what it calls "Thematic Issues"
it has not presented most of those issues to Post Office for comment.
For those few topics where Post Office has been asked for further information, that information has been
provided and enquiries are continuing into the questions posed at the meeting on 31 July 2014. Itis
noticeable however that very little of the information from Post Office, which has taken considerable time
and effort to compile, has been used or even referred to in the Draft Report.
Regrettably, this has led to a Draft Report that is of sub-standard quality, is not consistent with Second
Sight's terms of engagement as an expert and, most critically, does not deliverthe piece of work that was
commissioned by the Working Group.
As discussed at the Working Group meeting on XX, the Draft Report was intended to draw together
common issues that arose across multiple cases. The intention being that it would be more cost effective
for Second Sight to produce a single report on those issues that could then be referred to, as
appropriate, in the case specific Case Review Reports produced by Second Sight. Second Sight were
not given an open-ended mandate to produce any document they saw fit.
The Draft Report however does not identify any thematic issue that could have general application to
multiple Applicants. It either poses hypothetical suggestions as to what issues there may be without any
evidence to demonstrate those issues actually exist or it raises a compendium of individual issues that
have no commonality.
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Most tellingly, Second Sight has yet to find any evidence of any system-wide issue with Horizon and yet
this most important "thematic" finding is not stated in the Draft Report.
I note that you have directed that the Draft Report should be finalised and released to Applicants.
However, the Terms of Reference of the Working Group require decisions to be made at a quorate
meeting of the Working Group following an established voting procedure. As the Draft Report does not
meet the brief set by the Working Group, there is no standing Working Group decision on which to direct
the release of the Draft Report at this time.
Post Office therefore maintains that the Working Group's Terms of Reference should be followed and
that the Draft Report be considered at the next face-to-face Working Group meeting on 16 September
2014 before any decision is taken to release it to Applicants.
It is not my intention to unnecessarily delay the release of the Report or to fetter Second Sight's
independence. It is accepted that Second Sight may reach conclusions with which Post Office
disagrees. However, the Draft Report, in its current form, will not assist Applicants but will only add
confusion around where there may be issues that affect Applicants generally and where there is little
more than unproven speculation, and furthermore is, in the view of the Post Office, biased in the extreme
in favour of as yet untested allegations by applicants and their advisors.
lam genuinely concerned that Post Office will be forced into spending considerable time at mediation
explaining Second Sight's imprecise allegations rather than addressing the issues that actually affect
Applicants. This will inevitably result in less cases being resolved and be a source of dissatisfaction
amongst Applicants.
Finally, this letter is not written lightly. You will recall that we had a similar issue in relation to the Part
One Report. Eventually Post Office gave Second Sight its own factfile to make their own but even then it
needed the input of the Working Group to remove the inaccurate comments that Second Sight had
added in. Post Office has now sat at a number of Working Group meetings where considerable effort
has been expended on working through issues and agreeing approaches only for members of the
Working Group to subsequently either adopt a different stance on matters as though those discussions
have never happened or take it upon themselves to do something different. Whilst Post Office
acknowledges that establishing the Scheme would require an investment of time and resources it cannot
allow the success of the Scheme to be jeopardised by a Draft Report that is notfit for the purpose set by
the Working Group.
Yours sincerely
Chris Aujard
General Counsel
Post Office Limited