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Message
From: Jane Macleo
on behalf of — Jane Macleod
Sent: 22/01/2016 17
To: Tim Parker I
Subject: Chairman's review
Tim
Following our call with Jonathan Swift QC today, and ahead of your meeting with Baroness Neville Rolfe on Tuesday, I
have summarised below our progress.
We discussed with Jonathan today the recommendations from his report.
How to take forward his recommendations
We discussed each of the recommendations, the extent of any prior work that POL has undertaken in these areas, and
our proposed follow up actions. These are summarised on the attached table and Jonathan confirmed that the follow
up actions appeared to be appropriate responses. He accepted that there was a risk that the costs of the work required
to address the recommendations in items 3 & 4 (the additional IT investigations) may prove to be disproportionate, but
agreed that it would be appropriate to commission a scoping piece of work to verify this. We queried whether he would
consider Deloitte sufficiently independent given the assurance and other work that they currently undertake on behalf
of POL, and he confirmed that his concern would be more around the integrity of the expert and he therefore believed
that the appointment of Deloitte would not be inappropriate.
Briefing to the Minister
We also discussed with Jonathan whether there were any limitations from his perspective on the content of your
briefing to the Minister. Jonathan confirmed that there were no limitations from his perspective, although he noted
that if a physical or electronic copy were provided, this could result in the loss of legal privilege in connection with the
document, recognising that, in the absence of privilege, the report could be disclosable under a FOI request.
Accordingly, our recommendation is that you provide a verbal briefing to the Minister that in response to the question
“Was there anything further that PO should do?’:
e Jonathan has made a series of recommendations which have been accepted by PO.
e These recommendations will be followed up as soon as possible.
e = Inrelation to 2 of the IT related recommendations, the scope of work required to discharge the
recommendation is uncertain, and we will therefore commission work to determine whether the work is
feasible.
e We will provide you with regular updates on progress of this work, and you will therefore be able to provide
updates to the Minister in future briefings.
Once the work has been completed , we will need to consider whether the Minister requires anything in writing from
you and whether any such document would be made available publicly.
For completeness, you should be aware that BIS officials had asked for ‘pre-brief’ on the progress made to date. This
took place on Wednesday and they were told:
the review is being conducted for you personally;
Post Office has limited its involvement to the supply of information to Jonathan and providing logistical support;
a first draft of the report was sent to you during the week commencing 11" January for you to consider;
you have not had the opportunity to discuss the report with Jonathan;
@ the report makes a limited number of recommendations;
eceee
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@ you have indicated that you wish all recommendations to be accepted and taken forward where
possible. Precise timescales for completion will depend on how long this work takes; and
your meeting with the Minister will be the opportunity for you to provide an update.
As ever, I am happy to provide further detail.
Kind regards,
Jane
fa Jane MacLeod
General Counsel
Ground Floor
20 Finsbury Street
LONDON
EC2Y 9AQ
Mobile number:!
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