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CONFIDENTIAL AND LEGALLY PRIVILEGED
POST OFFICE GROUP LITIGATION WOMBLE
BOND
Steering Group Meeting: 3 November 2017 DICKINSON
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1.6
1.7
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DISCUSSION PAPER: Should Post Office change the way it deals with Active Claimants?
BACKGROUND
Of the 510 Claimants, there are around 120 that are still engaged as postmasters actively
working in branches (Active Claimants). Like all postmasters, these Active Claimants encounter
day to day issues such as losses in branches. However, by their very nature, this particular
group has a higher incidence of these issues.
Around 40 Active Claimants are currently in some form of live dispute with Post Office in which
Womble Bond Dickinson has at least a supervisory role. These disputes are typically regarding
losses in branches and consequent suspensions and terminations. Where this happens, Freeths
often step in and start writing to WBD on behalf of the Active Claimants. This then necessarily
causes WBD to have to reply so to ensure that the answers provided align with Post Office's
wider legal position in the litigation. Since the start of the litigation over 200 letters have been
exchanged between WBD and Freeths. We estimate that WBD's role in this costs Post Office
around £20k - £30k per month.
Where possible, we have sought to manage the Active Claimants within existing BAU processes,
such that Post Office communicates directly to the Active Claimants. This mainly means advising
the Contract Advisors on how to handle conduct cases, but it also touches on the debt teams,
security, parts of FSC, SSRT and sometimes field support.
The challenge is that the decisions made in relation to Active Claimants are subject to much
greater scrutiny than usual. Freeths regularly demand access to lots of documents, ask awkward
(if unnecessary) questions and criticise Post Office's responses.
The current way of working is satisfactory but puts strain both on the litigation process and Post
Office's teams. From the litigation perspective, we are not necessarily getting all the information
we need as quickly as we need it. This is not a criticism of Post Office's teams but a reflection on
the often demanding deadlines set by Freeths. From Post Office's perspective, we suspect that
the internal teams are slightly frustrated with lawyers pouring over their decisions and disrupting
their usual workflows. It is also difficult to keep all people in all these teams fully apprised of
developments in the litigation, which can change quickly but also subtly. This has, we believe,
led to some suggestion that the teams are not being kept in the loop.
Overall, everyone is working together well and we wish to express our thanks for all the support
(and patience!) we get from Post Office, but we would like to explore whether there is a way of
doing things better. In this context, we note comments made to us by senior management that it
would consider requests for extra internal support / staff if needed.
Our aim is to be able to respond faster to Freeths so to keep the pressure on them and respond
more comprehensively so that there can be no complaint that they do nothave sufficient
information, whilst minimising the extra work needed from Post Office's BAU teams.
We do not yet have a firm view on how this might be achieved but set out below some points for
discussion.
OPTIONS
Communication with Freeths
The current line of communication is, wherever possible, from Post Office (often Contract
Advisors) direct to Active Claimants. We are resisting getting drawn into long correspondence
with Freeths about substantive issues and encourage Active Claimants to speak diredly to Post
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Office. As Freeths' arguments are becoming more sophisticated (they are now laying traps in
correspondence hoping that Post Office will confirm or deny something that will be used against it
later in Court) this is becoming more difficult to police at arm's length. One way to address this is
for WBD to be the principal voice for Post Office in these cases, with us taking instructions from
Post Office (rather than Post Office speaking to Active Claimants with us advising behind the
scenes).
Internal Reporting
2.2 We see a need for increased flow of information into internal teams about progress in the
litigation in general. This could be by the way of further briefings from the lawyers, but suspect
that this is better done through line management who can tailor the message to a particular
business area.
2.3 There is a tension here in that we need to carefully control the dissemination of information in
order to protect legal privilege.
Support structure
24 One challenge is that each person in an internal team may only occasionally have to deal with an
Active Claimant. Because they are not regularly involved, it is difficult for them to keep up to
speed with what is going on in the litigation, and then when an Active Claimant comes across
their desk it suddenly requires urgent attention. One solution may be to form a smaller group of
people who manage all the Active Claimants. We can see a couple of ways of doing this.
25 First, one or two people in each team could take responsibility for the Active Claimants. For
example, rather than spreading the Active Claimants across all the Contract Advisors, they could
all be handled by one or two Contract Advisors who are dedicated to this. This would then need
to be replicated in all other teams (eg. security, debt, etc.)
2.6 Second, a separate standalone team could be setup to manage all the Active Claimants entirely
outside of BAU processes.
27 We note that addressing this structural point, and ring-fencing the Active Claimants under the
management of a small number of dedicated people, may also help with internal reporting and
the protection of privileged material.
3. RECOMMEDATION
3.1 Our very tentative recommendation is to create a standalone team to manage the Active
Claimants, potentially as an extension of the SSRT / litigation support team run by Kath and
Shirley who by their very nature are much closer to the litigation. This team can then liaise with
the business where necessary, providing WBD with instructions and allowing us to go back to
Freeths more effectively.
3.2 We recognise however that this matter is some way outside our area of expertise and would
therefore welcome views from the Steering Group.
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