POL00081700_160
POL00081700_160
Telephone attendance
Client: Royal Mail Group PLC Sub Postmaster Litigation
Matter: Mr Lee Castleton Matter no: 348035.134
Attending:
Name: Stephen Dilley/ob1 Location: N/A Date: 2 October 2006
Start time: Units:
SJD telephone conversation with Tony Kane, who was coming back to me on my email of 27 September
to him.
He said that he did not have a solid answer. He did not know how the transfers into suspense accounts
worked. As a surplus is taken out of cash shortages, the only thing that changed was the cash figure in
the snap shots. He doesn’t think it changed the discrepancy figure. He doesn’t really know how it
works. The totals changed by the adjustment, but the difference is the same. When a sub-postmaster
has a shortage, he can pay it into his expense account to reduce it. The discrepancy should go down
too.
What worries him about the test is that when the amount was paid into the expense account, it had just
the cash figure. He would expect the £100 in the expense account but it not to reduce the cash figure.
The expense account should be seen as a separate figure. He thinks this may have been caused by the
way the test was set up.
What he ultimately said was that he couldn’t understand why there was a discrepancy surplus still
showing in the cash account for week 6 of £103.11 and a £100 authorised cash shortage showing. He
couldn’t explain why the surplus was still showing the cash account after the transfer of £100 into the
expense account. The cash account should reduce. Conversely, he couldn’t explain why there was a
shortage of £101.21 showing in the cash account week 7 after the £100 was transferred back out of the
expense account. We discussed whether the £100 out of the £103.11 might be an additional surplus for
that week, but if so, it should balance out the week later ie. there should be just a £1.21 shortage
showing a week later.
Agreeing within the time I will talk to the retail line manager to try to get to the bottom of this.
Time engaged including attendance note - 42 minutes
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