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PS 15/01-15/03 POST OFFICE LTD
SPARROW SUB-COMMITTEE.
Minutes of a meeting of the Project Sparrow Sub-Committee of the Board
held at 148 Old Street, London EC1V 9HQ on 12 January 2015
Present: Alice Perkins (AP) Chair
Alasdair Marnoch (AM) Non-Executive Director
Richard Callard (RC) Non-Executive Director
Paula Vennells (PV) CEO
Chris Aujard (CA) General Counsel
In Attendance:Alwen Lyons (AL) Company Secretary
Belinda Crowe (BC) Programme Director, Project Sparrow
Mark Davies (MD) Communications and Corporate Affairs
Director
Rodric Williams (RW) Litigation Lawyer
Patrick Bourke (PB) Project Sparrow
PS 15/01 OPENING OF MEETING
A quorum being present, the Chair opened the meeting of the
Sparrow Sub-Committee (the “Committee”) and welcomed Mark
Davies, Belinda Crowe, Rodric Williams and Patrick Bourke.
PS 15/02 INITIAL COMPLAINT REVIEW AND MEDIATION SCHEME
(a) The Committee received a paper on the current position of the Initial
Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme (the “Scheme’”).
(b) The Committee discussed the immediate steps being taken by the
Business in relation to the Scheme, with Post Office investigation into all
cases now complete and 22 cases resolved.
(c) MD explained that after the recent Westminster Hall debate the
Business proposed to offer face to face meetings with each MP involved
and, where appropriate, take them through their constituent’s case. The
Committee supported this approach and recommended that
consideration be given to making a similar offer to all MPs who have a
case in the scheme.
(d) CA reported that changes to business processes had resulted in a
reduction in current litigation cases. Post Office was not bringing a
material number of new prosecutions, but in blatant cases of theft where
large amounts had been stolen the police continued to prosecute the
cases. The Committee was assured that cases were being prosecuted
where appropriate.
(e) The Committee discussed the Judicial Review (JR) advice provided by
Tom Weisselberg QC, and asked whether it was inconsistent with the
Beachcroft advice received in the summer. CA explained that the two
sets of advice were not inconsistent, with the Beechcroft advice having
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been given before the Working Group had started considering individual
cases and Post Office had completed its investigations of all cases. Any
decision to change the Scheme at that time would therefore have been
based on Post Office’s assessment of what might have happened,
rather than on the facts, increasing the JR risk. Since then, the
approach adopted by the Working Group of discussing each case on a
case by case basis had reinforced the positioning that affairs of Working
Group were now (given that all cases had been investigated by Post
Office) a matter of private law — that is disputes between Post Office and
individual applicants - as opposed to “network wide” issues more
susceptible to a JR claim.
(f
The Committee discussed Second Sight and their ‘Part Two’ report due
to be finalised in April. The Committee agreed that the Business was
unlikely to be able to stop this report from being produced but should
press Second Sight to complete the individual case reviews by the end
of March i.e. giving the cases priority.
(g) The Committee asked the Business to produce an options paper to
ACTION: analyse the most effective ways to bring the Scheme to a sensible
MD conclusion, taking into consideration; time; financial implications; PR and
stakeholder management (MPs and the Minister); and JFSA.
(h) The Committee asked that the steps set out in the paper be taken
quickly to mitigate recent activities of JFSA and the media, including:
e Providing a robust response to allegations in the media including
writing to BBC lawyers where appropriate and engaging at a
senior level with Programme editors;
e Writing to individual MPs who participated in the Westminster
Hall debate to offer a meeting to discuss their constituents case
and Post Office’s position;
e¢ Compiling a ‘dossier’ addressing the general accusations made
against Post Office in the Westminster Hall debate and liaising
with RC about how best to handle that with the Minister.
(i) The Committee agreed that the Business should:
ACTION: e continue to take a robust approach at the Working Group,
CA/BC/MD focussing on the agreed TOR in an attempt to set the Scheme
back on track, but with no presumption regarding the next steps
for the Scheme;
e consider the most effective options to draw a line under the
Scheme for consideration at a future Sparrow Sub-Committee;
and
« provide a general update for the January Board
PS15/03 CLOSE
There being no further business the meeting was closed.