POL00218945
POL00218945
As part of the Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme, Second Sight is engaged as a firm of
forensic accountants to provide a logical and fully evidenced opinion on the merits of each
Applicant's case.
On 21 August 2014, Second Sight's Briefing Report — Part Two was sent as a confidential document to
a number of Applicants and their advisors, as well as to Post Office. The purpose of the Report was
to describe and expand on common issues identified by Second Sight as being raised by multiple
Applicants.
Several issues were said by Second Sight, within or subsequent to the publication of the Briefing
Report — Part Two, to require further investigation. One of which was Suspense Accounts.
Questions on Suspense Accounts have come in two tranches.
1) Asanaction from WG meetings. The two examples are included below:
Could any SPMRs have been charged by Post Office Ltd for amounts that become
incorporated in suspense account balances that were subsequently taken into profit
by POL or any of its Counterparty Companies, or that remain as credit balances on
the balance sheet of POL or any of its Counterparty Companies?
To which PO responded with the below embedded paper
me
Suspense account
paper Second Sight.p
Relating to concerns that credit entries in Post Office's Suspense Accounts can only
have arisen where amounts that have been received by Post Office, but may not be
due to Post Office (for example the amount may be due to be paid to one of Post
Office's clients or to one of its branches but where it is not, or not yet, clear who
should be paid).
Namely, sight of the Credit entries, derived from Suspense Accounts, which have
eventually been written off to the credit of Post Office's P&L Account
This question remains outstanding. Context is provided via the below email chain
od
FW FW Errors that
arise between Post O
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2) Within Second Sight’s questions sent, as part of their finalisation of their Briefing Report —
Part Two, to PO on 9 Dec 2014. The questions posed, together with the answers provided
are detailed below.
Post Office has already addressed Second Sight's questions on its Suspense Accounts in its
Suspense Accounts paper. This paper demonstrated that so long as a branch follows Post
Office's standard operating practices, it cannot suffer a loss due to the operation of a
Suspense Account.
2.1
2.
nN
2.3
a)
b)
Please provide full details of all Suspense Accounts held by Post Office. Please also
provide a schedule, for each year end between 2008 and 2013, showing the amounts
transferred to Post Office’s Profit and Loss Account (both debits and credits) for each
Suspense Account held.
It appears that this question is targeting whether the operation of the Suspense Account
could ever wrongfully disadvantage a Subpostmaster. As mentioned above, Post Office
has already addressed this question in its Suspense Account paper. Given that the data
sought in this question would only show organisation-wide Suspense Account
movements, and not branch level data, we should be grateful if Second Sight could
clarify precisely what information it is seeking and how this will assist in the resolution
of individual cases? Post Office will then look to see what information is available and
can be provided to address those issues.
Please also provide a schedule, for each year end between 2008 and 2013, showing the
balance held on each Suspense Account (both credits and debits).
This is a disproportionately wide request for general information, without identification
of a specific issue raised by Applicants. If Second Sight is able to identify, with
supporting materials, specific cases where Applicants to the Scheme have been affected
by these issues, Post Office will of course reconsider this request.
Please provide an electronic report in CSV format or similar showing for the last 3
years the following information for every item posted to any Suspense Account:
Full transaction details;
This is a disproportionately wide request for general information, without
identification of a specific issue raised by Applicants. If Second Sight is able to identify,
with supporting materials, specific cases where Applicants to the Scheme have been
affected by these issues, Post Office will of course reconsider this request.
Originator’s reference;
This is a disproportionately wide request for general information, without
identification of a specific issue raised by Applicants. If Second Sight is able to identify,
with supporting materials, specific cases where Applicants to the Scheme have been
affected by these issues, Post Office will of course reconsider this request.
c)
d)
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Any comments or notes associated with the transaction; and
This is a disproportionately wide request for general information, without
identification of a specific issue raised by Applicants. If Second Sight is able to identify,
with supporting materials, specific cases where Applicants to the Scheme have been
affected by these issues, Post Office will of course reconsider this request.
Full account details of the account the transaction relates to or is being transferred
to.
This is a disproportionately wide request for general information, without
identification of a specific issue raised by Applicants. If Second Sight is able to identify,
with materials, specific cases where Applicants to the Scheme have been affected by
these issues, Post Office will of course reconsider this request.
2.4 Please describe the controls used to detect errors in Post Office client reports that if
not corrected could give rise to an incorrect TA or TC being issued.
Where Post Office receives client reports, these are part of matching accounts, where
Horizon data is matched to the client data. Therefore, if the client report was wrong, it
should lead to a difference compared to the Branch data. Post Office would then
investigate that difference. If a wrong approach were made to a branch, the branch
themselves could, in turn, challenge it.