Innovation & Skills
Edward Davey MP
Ministe!
BIS
Our ref: 222481/222488
Alan Bates , Your ref:
Alan Bates
eas War Carer,
Thank you for your letters of 14 and 21 October, about Post Office Ltd (POL)
and their Horizon system. I apologise for the delay in replying.
+ December 2010
Following our meeting, the points you raised as Chairman of the Justice for
Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) are being followed up on my behalf by
Officials as part of our dialogue with the company. However, as I made clear
at the meeting, neither I nor the Department can intervene in cases which are
sub judice or where court action had been determined, as in Mrs Misra’s and
Mrs Buffrey’s cases.
I recognise that the core of the JFSA’s concerns relates to the Horizon system
to which you attribute the financial discrepancies and shortages which have
led to a number of subpostmasters having their contracts terminated and
subsequent court action. However POL continues to express full confidence
in the integrity and robustness of the Horizon system and also categorically
states that there is no remote access to the system or to individual branch
terminals which would allow accounting records to be manipulated in any way.
In addition, I understand that all system activity, down to the individual key
stroke, is also recorded into a separate vaulted transaction file with every
record encrypted and written to the log and with each record having a unique
incrementing sequence number. This log is retained on a separate server
independent of Horizon for at least seven years, cannot be altered in any way
and all access to it is securely controlled. This approach is consistent with that
of banking systems and provides a fully secure audit file which can show all
system activity in a particular branch.
4 Victoria Street, London SW1H GET
www.bis.gomuk
Enquiries (_. “I Minicom 4__
Department for Business
1 Employment Relations,
“"} Contact us www.bis.gov.uk/contac}
POL00186759
POL00186759
iS
A
POL00186759
POL00186759
In your letter of 14 October, you suggest that the wider introduction of the Post
Office local (Essentials) model will wipe out that part of the investment of the
subpostmaster relating to the original post office element of the business.
I can assure you that, although the precise details have still to be finalised,
there will be appropriate financial arrangements in place to reflect either the
relocation of post office services or the transition from the current contract
model to the new one at the same site. I would also emphasise that there will
be no programme of post office closures.