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From: Paula Vennells,
Sent: Thur 20/02/2014 6:
48 PM (UTC)
To: Alice Perkins CB:
Subject: Fwd: Richard Callard -
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Hi Alice, I hope you are having a great holiday.
Three quick updates before we meet next week:
Firstly, I wanted you to see the note below. It is self-explanatory but I thought it was needed at this point as
Richard Callard joins us.
Secondly, and probably most importantly, I have managed to get (separate) meetings in my diary on Monday
with SS and with Tony Hooper, so we should be better informed for our 121 and for the Board discussion. I am
crashing Monday am diary to prepare.
Lastly, I know that Alwen has been in touch to let you know that we have flagged a couple of confidential points
that are not covered in the Board papers to the NEDs. The first you knew about re SS; the second was my
request re the Business Transformation Director, which Neil is now working on (and knows the urgency!). I
have also gone through the Board paper on Business Transformation, partly because I wanted to make sure it
had my input and partly to make sure we have picked up as much input from Tim as possible. He had a very
good meeting with Neil Hayward and I also had a long chat with Tim last Friday. I'll update you properly when
we meet.
That's all for now. See you on Tuesday.
Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:
From: Paula Vennells {-
Date: 19 February 2
“}, Mark
i, Chris
This is really helpful Neil, thank you.
Richard asks the right questions. It's good to be reminded that we are now in a different phase
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with government - Will Gibson did an excellent job in supporting us through the strategy and
funding requirements, Richard has the job of making sure that government gets a return for that.
We are in the delivery phase and (within BIS) he is accountable. We need to make him
comfortable and confident that we will deliver what we set out to.
The quarterly Shex review is coming up next week, I expect Richard will be back from
leave and I would like us to be well prepared for it. (And if he is still away, it will be a good dry
run.) In my mind there are two aspects: firstly, that we share what is going well to build
confidence - there is progress across all areas flagged below, some with more or less risk
attached; and secondly, we discuss openly where the risks are and explain mitigation. Richard will
not run the meeting as informally as Will: he has a different style and is working in a changed
context, and I want his first impressions of the PO ExCo to be set high.
We need to be confident of our track-record, professional and well planned, ie., anticipating the
challenges below before they are raised and being prepared to discuss plans and contingencies
related to them, and of course, completely on the numbers. I am in no doubt we can do this and
am flagging my expectation now, as each of you will need to put time aside - none of the
challenges below are new to you but they will need some additional preparation time to deal with
them properly with government. And although I don't know this for sure, I expect we will get
more formal minutes as happened after my first meeting with Richard. Again, a good thing - we
are accountable for delivery against public funds.
Richard's scope has not yet picked up Sparrow or Business Transformation. It will as he is
attending next week's Board meeting. But as this is the case, I suggest that we leave them off the
Shex review agenda as he will be well briefed by then.
Please can Chris circulate an agenda (draft is fine), attendees and outline requirements for each
ExCo director by end of play Friday, so that colleagues have time to think about this. (If anyone
thinks a dry run would be a good idea - please let Chris know.)
Finally, I have a monthly 121 with Richard on Monday and will let you know if anything more
immediate emerges.
Many thanks,
Paula
Ps. I want as few attendees as possible, ie., accountable directors only - so am not anticipating
Lesley, or Chris A as your main areas are unlikely to come up; and Mark - we might be better
waiting for the next one to cover Mutualisation/POAC. But everyone is copied as you will all be
needed at one soon and Chris will confirm attendees for next week asap.
Sent from my iPad
On 19 Feb 2014, at 13:34, "Neil Hayward" C
wrote:
FYI —I recently met with Richard during his induction and mine to the Post Office.
He provided me with some insight on the things that interest him. So, as he catches up
with the rest of us, I thought I should share what I learnt so that we can each prepare
accordingly (of course you may already know all of this and if you do, sorry!):
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- The Post Office is hugely politically important. Whilst it is probably the third
biggest of the c 20 or so businesses being managed through the Shareholder
Executive, it carries the highest profile. Everything that we do has the potential to
create issues for ministers. This is partly why he/they will always ask us detailed
questions. He also explained that HM Treasury applies pressure to ensure that the
investment in the Post Office is doing what we/they said it would do.
- Network Transformation is therefore critical. He is keen to discover if the new
formats we are rolling out will/are leading to better service/revenue growth.
Equally Ministers are mindful of the local politics of decisions to change formats or
shape of the network. We can expect him to be interested in the detail of this — on
an on-going basis. In particular stakeholder engagement — NFSP.
- Mutualisation — Whilst this has been of particular interest to Liberal Democrats in
the past, explaining what we really intend from the 20/20 strategy and how we are
going to create mutual ways of working (and how this translates into future
ownership models) will, in his view, require us to do more work this year, and
ensure this work is understood and supported by other political parties. He sees
the launch of our public purpose as a first step, and the POAC as a vehicle through
which mutualisation can be explored.
- Business Risk — Mails — He is interested in how the commercial relationship with
the Royal Mail is developing post separation, with an eye on the Mails contract and
the risk of this needing to be or being re-negotiated. He wants to be assured that
we are preparing for potential difficulty/different scenarios.
- Business Opportunity — FS — He thinks that this is an opportunity to accelerate
growth plans and will be interested in the detail of our plans.
- Government Business — He seemed to support the idea that the Post Office should
have a deeper relationship with branches of Government — as a means of
developing business. He thinks we need to get close to and understand what the
Government Digital service unit is intending as this is a risk.
- State aid/EU rules — He himself has to make sure that the funding agreement now
put in place for the Post Office fits within the framework laid down by the EU — and
ensure it is approved. He wasn’t suggesting this would be a problem, but that it
might create a workflow for him and us.
- Remuneration — we discussed the scorecard and the various issues re thresholds —
and he welcomed the meeting that is now in his diary for 6° March.
This was a good conversation. The inference I draw though is that he will want to get
underneath the surface a bit.
Hope this helps.
NEIL
Neil Hayward I Group People Director
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148 Old Street, London, EC1V 9HQ
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postoffice.co.uk
@postofficenews
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