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Subject: Sparrow - briefing for Paula for Board
Attachment: 20131022 CEO's review October 2013 - Project Sparrow.doc
Attachment: RE: CEO's report text on criminal cases review
Hi Belinda
Here’s the final text on Sparrow which went into the CEO’s report. As discussed earlier, very grateful if you could co-
ordinate the briefing which Paula will need ahead of the Board to bring her up to speed on the issues and prepare her
for any difficult questions from the NEDs. It now looks highly likely that Paula won't be able to attend tomorrow’s
steering group — if we can fit in a separate short catch-up for you, Chris and her we will, but this might not be possible.
So the written brief will be even more important I’m afraid. It doesn’t need to be long — 1-2 sides max — but suggest it
covers the following points:
e Update on mediation/working group process
o Any messages to manage the Board’s expectations about timescales for completing the mediation
process
o Feedback from Tony Hooper’s first meeting with the working group (useful for the Board to hear that
this is already delivering a step change in the way the process is managed, including greater clarity
about SS’s role)
o Linked to this, an explanation of SS’s expected role going forwards (bearing in mind that certain board
members will have a strong expectation that they should be out of the process by the end of
December — so we may need to manage these expectations)
e Any additional detail on the settlement policy which we’re in the process of developing, e.g. a high level
description of the trade-offs which we’re seeking to resolve through this process
e Any explanation of the issues around the review of past criminal cases, which Rodric can help provide,
covering: a) what exactly has been disclosed so far; and b) our best guess of the implications of these
disclosures (i.e. explaining that at this stage we have no reason to believe this means past cases will be found
to be unsafe). I’ve attached an email from Rodric which contains some of the answers to these questions, but
would be useful to have this together in one place.
If there is anything more to say on the prosecutions ‘policy’ paper and/or the improvement workstream then please
include that too, but I’m not particularly expecting anything more on these at this stage.
The Board is on Thursday, so it would be useful for her to have this by tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning. As
you know, I’m on leave after today — I may have an opportunity to log on in the evenings to look at things, but if not
then I suggest you send direct to Paula copied to me.
Thanks very much,
Martin
Martin Edwards I Chief of Staff to the Chief Executive
postoffice.co.uk
@postofficenews
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