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Witness Name: Adrian Harvey Jarman
Statement No.: WITN05530100
Dated: 29 March 2023
THE POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
First Witness Statement of Adrian Harvey Jarman
I, ADRIAN HARVEY JARMAN, of f°
), WILL SAY AS FOLLOWS:
1. My name is Adrian Harvey Jarman, though I am generally known as Eddie
Jarman. I have been employed by Post Office Limited ("POL") (or its
predecessors) since January 1981.
2. Except where I indicate to the contrary, the facts and matters contained in this
witness statement are within my own knowledge. Where any information is not
within my personal knowledge, I have identified the source of my information or
the basis for my belief. The facts in this witness statement are true to the best
of my knowledge and belief.
3. In this statement I use the term "Postmaster" broadly to refer to those people
or entities that are responsible for operating post offices (but excluding those
individuals employed by POL), rather than with any formal definition in mind. I
use the terms "Postmaster" and "Subpostmaster" interchangeably given their
common usage. Nothing in this statement is intended to detract or differ from
any definition adopted by POL.
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4. This witness statement has been prepared in response to the request made by
the Horizon IT Inquiry (the "Inquiry") pursuant to Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules
2006, dated 18 August 2022 (the "Rule 9 Request"). In this witness statement,
I address each of the questions set out in Appendix 1 to the Rule 9 Request
regarding my career background at POL and my knowledge of and involvement
with the following areas within POL:
a. Advice and assistance;
b. Training;
c. Errors or issues with Horizon system; and
d. Resolution of disputes.
5. Where I refer to specific documents in this statement, copies of those
documents are exhibited to this statement (as set out in the index below) and
identified by the Inquiry's unique reference number for that document.
DEFINED TERMS
6. In this statement, I have used a number of acronyms and defined terms. I have
set out a definition of each, as I have introduced them. However, for
convenience, I also set out the definitions of these acronyms and definitions
below:
Dynamics The Helpline's Dynamics 365 case management
system
First Rate First Rate Travel Services Limited (which later
became First Rate Exchange Services Limited)
FSC Financial Service Centre
Helpline The NBSC Helpline
Horizon The Horizon IT System
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Inquiry The Horizon IT Inquiry
KBA Knowledge base article
Mcc Multi-currency card
NBSC Network Business Support Centre (which later
became the Branch Support Centre)
POL Post Office Limited
Rule 9 Request The Inquiry's request pursuant to Rule 9 of the Inquiry
Rules 2006, dated 18 August 2022
CAREER BACKGROUND
7. I first joined Post Office in January 1981 as a counter clerk in Portman Square
Post Office, a branch directly managed by Post Office. I had two O Levels when
I joined and have not obtained any further qualifications since. When I first
joined, I received four weeks of training at a POL training school, and then did
four weeks of supervised working at a "satellite" or "training" office on Kingsland
High Street. The branch was fully functional and we were serving the public,
but I had someone sitting behind me all the time providing supervision.
8. I continued to work as a counter clerk at different Crown branches in the West
End until 1995, when I was promoted to branch manager in the Marble Arch
Crown Office. I then managed the Acton Crown Office, followed by the
Albemarle Street Crown Office. I recall doing a management course in Rugby,
which focused mainly on management skills and how to handle staff. I also
received training for any new system that came out, including the Horizon IT
system ("Horizon"). I remember attending a day of off-site training about
Horizon and how to use the system. When Horizon was installed in my branch,
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10.
11.
12.
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I vaguely recall that a member of the project team was available in branch all
week to answer any questions.
In 2001, I was promoted as a product manager dealing with foreign exchange
in the Travel team. In 2017, my title changed to senior product manager.
The role of a product manager essentially involves taking responsibility for one
or more products offered by the Post Office. Every product has a manager (or
more than one manager), and they are expected to be the subject matter expert
for that particular product. Product managers are mainly responsible for product
development and income generation, and they also deal with queries from other
areas of the business in relation to that product.
I have been the product manager for foreign currency since 2001. I was also
the product manager for MoneyGram for a while roughly eight to ten years ago,
but I cannot remember the exact dates. Since 2017 I have been responsible for
travel money cards and travel cheques in addition to foreign currency. A job
description for my role was produced in 2017 [POL00113425].
Rather than receiving formal training when I became a product manager, I
learnt about the products for which I was responsible through observation and
discussions with my line manager, Hugh Stacey, who also worked on foreign
currency at the time, and First Rate Travel Services Limited (which later
became First Rate Exchange Services Limited) ("First Rate"), who provided
foreign currency to POL. First Rate is a joint venture between POL and Bank of
Ireland. I also already had some knowledge of selling foreign currency over the
counter through my previous work in branch.
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ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE
Dealing with queries
13. As a product manager, I have very rarely had direct contact with postmasters.
My only direct contact with postmasters is addressed in paragraph 22 below.
As such, I do not know whether there was anyone who could have done more
to assist or make things better for postmasters.
14. For most of my tenure, if postmasters had queries about foreign currency that
the Network Business Support Centre (the "NBSC") Helpline (the "Helpline")
was unable to answer immediately, they would be lodged with the "Tier 2" team
for investigation. The Tier 2 team would send those queries onto someone in
operations named Raj Kalsi, who provided product support for foreign currency.
Raj would deal with the vast majority of those questions but occasionally one
would be forwarded to me if he was unable to answer (for example, why POL
did not sell a particular currency).
15. In around 2017, as part of a major reorganisation, the team in which Raj sat
was made redundant and since then the Tier 2 team (as well as area managers
and the sales team) have sent any queries from postmasters about my products
that they were unable to answer to me. The number of queries about my
products has increased significantly in the last year, as a lot of knowledge about
travel products has been lost due to the decrease in travel during the pandemic.
16. Any query about a transaction would involve Horizon, though that might simply
be because a transaction has been completed incorrectly. I now receive around
ten or a dozen queries a week regarding how specific transactions have worked
at the counter. Depending on the investigation, I usually respond to queries
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within a couple of days, or on the same day where possible. The most common
query is where someone has put through a sale of foreign currency as a
purchase. I set out the implications of this in paragraph 34 below. Another
common query concerns click & collect transactions (where a customer orders
foreign currency online before picking it up in branch), as if a click & collect
transaction is abandoned part way through for any reason it is then ‘locked’
security reasons. The lock stays in place for 30 minutes usually but sometimes
it can require First Rate to unlock the transaction manually, and I liaise with
First Rate about this.
17. As a product manager, I am generally expected to be able to answer queries
relating to my products, and so it is rare for me to escalate queries to others.
On occasion, I have escalated queries to my line manager (currently Sean
Morley), for example if someone was complaining about the rates offered in
branch. I might also go to First Rate, as they have detailed records of all of the
transactions. If there were a need to contact the branch, I might go to the area
manager. If I were to have any queries for Fujitsu, I would send these to POL's
service delivery team who would deal with Fujitsu directly. However I cannot
recall much that I was able to escalate to someone else.
Written materials
18. Where the Helpline staff inform me that they are frequently getting the same
question, I may assist with updating their knowledge base articles ("KBAs") so
that guidance is readily available to them when answering calls. However I do
not have access to the Helpline's Dynamics 365 case management system
("Dynamics"), on which the KBAs are stored. If a new product was being
introduced or significant changes were being made to a product, I would
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generally provide the Helpline staff with an FAQ sheet to assist with common
questions that they might be asked.
19. I am responsible for keeping the Horizon Help pages relating to my products up
to date. Updates are usually made where we are introducing a new product, or
where I have received a query as to the accuracy of a page. I then send any
updates through to the communications team, who will arrange for the pages
to be updated on Horizon Help. For example, I recently produced a currency
guide detailing all of the different currencies and denominations that POL
accepts that was uploaded onto Horizon Help.
TRAINING
20. I have not been responsible for managing the contracts of postmasters as such.
However, in the early 2000s, we had a very small foreign currency network and
a lot of branches that wanted to offer foreign currency. In order to facilitate this,
POL created an arrangement whereby the branch had to provide a £2,000
deposit, and if they hit a certain target, they got their deposit back. This was
known as the "Commercial Package". This involved the postmaster signing a
small two-page contract confirming that they understood that they would not get
their deposit back if they did not hit those targets. I recall that those postmasters
who signed up to the arrangement were provided with a workbook on foreign
currency, including the Horizon processes to follow.
21. IThe Commercial Package arrangement was in operation for about two to three
years. Once foreign currency was rolled out to branches on a wider basis and
the Commercial Package arrangement brought to an end, the postmasters who
were still in their one-year trial period at that time had their deposits returned.
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22. My role in the Commercial Package arrangement was to post these two-page
contracts to branches and then file the hard copies. I do not believe the
contracts were ever scanned, and I think the hard copies were later destroyed
(after the arrangement ended) in accordance with POL's document retention
policy at the time.
23. Given my very limited interactions with postmasters, I do not recall anyone
telling me that they did not feel confident using Horizon.
24. In terms of training, each time a new product is introduced for which I am
responsible, I have worked with the training team and the communications team
to put together a workbook on that product. Once a year the training team also
send me various training materials that are available to branches which contain
information related to my products. I ‘sign off these materials for accuracy and
confirm whether anything has changed in the meantime. As my input on training
is limited, I cannot think of improvements that could have been made to the
training received by postmasters.
ERRORS OR ISSUES WITH HORIZON SYSTEM
25. I cannot recall any systemic issues or problems with Horizon. Specific issues
did arise in relation to foreign currency products for which I was responsible
but, as far as I remember, these were not recurring issues which could give me
cause to believe that there was a problem with Horizon. I do recall that a few
years ago there was an issue with multi-currency transactions using the Travel
Money card, leading to freezing of the terminals and crashing of the system.
This was the result of the script in the files sent to First Rate detailing the
relevant transaction exceeding the maximum length by one or two characters.
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26.
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However, as far as I am aware, no discrepancies or shortfalls arose as result
of this issue as the issue arose prior to the transaction being logged and
payment being processed. The issue was resolved through a fix which removed
some unnecessary text from the scripts. The project was led by POL's IT team
and my involvement was quite limited.
I have been asked to consider my recollection of, and involvement in, two bugs
identified by Fraser J in the Technical Appendix to Bates & O’rs v. Post Office
Ltd [2019] EWHC 3408 (QB): Bureau discrepancies and Bureau de change.
(a) The first issue in relation to the "Bureau discrepancy bug" appears to relate
to a problem that arose due to a network timeout while a branch was
attempting to pre-order amounts for Indonesian rupiah and Singaporean
dollars for a single customer. I do not recall this issue, nor do I remember
having any involvement in it. However, it does seem to be an example of a
"comms issue", by which I mean issues that arose when the Horizon system
went down mid-transaction. I am familiar with issues of this nature, although
I do not recall this specific incident. For example, some transactions like
"click and collect" required an interaction with First Rate during the
transaction. Occasionally, comms would drop and only half the transaction
might have been recorded. If comms went down, First Rate would need to
unlock the transaction and the branch would technically be short until it
processed the transaction again. In such circumstances, it was necessary
to determine whether the transaction had gone through with First Rate. In
the case of the "Bureau discrepancy bug", I would imagine that a similar
investigation would have taken place. If the Operations Team (who were
responsible for dealing with day-to-day operational issues with respect to
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the product) could not understand what had happened, it might have been
escalated to the Travel Team. If on investigation the Operations Team
decided to issue a transaction correction, then it is unlikely that the issue
would have been escalated to the Travel Team. The "fix" for this issue
appears to have been to simplify multiple currency orders so that they were
processed as a single transaction (rather than multiple transactions). I do
recall having a conversation recently with James Brett (Test Manager at
POL) in the context of changes to the Pre-Order transactions, where I noted
my understanding that transactions such as these were processed as
multiple transactions. However, I was informed that the process had
changed a few years ago and that now these transactions were processed
individually. That is the extent of my recollection of this issue.
(b) The second issue that arose in relation to the "Bureau discrepancy bug"
appears to relate to a cash-flow problem experienced by a particular branch,
in that the Cash Management Team indicated that a branch was holding
more currency than the branch was declaring it held. The Cash
Management Team is part of POL's supply chain and provides branches
with currency. I am aware of instances like this occurring, but not with
respect to the specific branch mentioned. This is not an issue that I would
typically be involved in as it is a Cash Management Team issue. The branch
would contact the Cash Management Team to request currency and the
Cash Management Team may respond that the system records the branch
as having sufficient cash. If there was any issue to be reconciled, in my
experience, that would be dealt with by the Cash Management Team. If the
branch was dealing with the Cash Management Team directly, it would not
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surprise me that I was not made aware of the issue. The only time in which
the issue might be escalated to me is where the Area Manager asked for
assistance; however, I do not recall this occurring in relation to this issue.
(c) The "Bureau de change" bug, which I will refer to as the "Rate Board issue",
appears to relate to an inconsistency between exchange rate figures
featured in the Horizon system and the figures featured on the client-facing
rate board. I do not recall the Rate Board issue. The solution appears to
have been a code fix. First Rate would typically issue rates to the Travel
Team in the morning, which would be inputted into Horizon, and Horizon
would upload those rates onto the rate board. It is not clear to me, nor do I
recall, why the rate board featured a different rate. Given the Rate Board
issue involved a problem with exchange rates and foreign currency, I was
surprised for an issue like this to occur and not involve the Travel Team.
However, it might have been an incident that the IT team had awareness of
and did not feel it was necessary to involve the Travel Team. Equally, even
if the Travel Team was contacted, it may have been in relation to a limited
question or in an advisory capacity without being involved in the detail of the
fix.
In relation to the issues that the Inquiry has asked me to consider, I would add
that, up until about five years ago, teams within POL tended to operate
independently — at least far more compared to how we operate today. As a
Product Team, it would not be realistic to involve us in every issue across the
network simply because it involved travel money. For example, if a branch sent
counterfeit currency to the Cash Management Team and were subsequently
contacted noting that the branch had accepted counterfeit currency, none of
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that would come across my desk. My remit, which has changed recently, was
product development and marketing: essentially growing the product. I did not
tend to be involved in operational issues. Furthermore, as a product team, the
Travel Team would launch a new product and it would then operate in the
network for a period of 12-weeks. After that, if there were no issues
encountered, the Operations Team would take on responsibility for resolving
issues. This might explain why I do not recall the specific issues that the Inquiry
has asked me to consider. However, the Operations Team was made
redundant about five years ago.
In the course of preparing this witness statement, I was also shown (by Herbert
Smith Freehills LLP) an email chain from Spring 2017, relating to an issue with
Multi-currency Card ("MCC") Withdrawals [POL00113462], which showed that
over the counter MCC cash withdrawals were being treated as deposits, which
meant that branches where cash withdrawals were made were showing a loss.
40 transactions were affected by this issue which, I understand, was caused as
result of a problem with the reference data in Horizon. This issue was raised on
21 March 2017 and a fix was identified on 22 March 2017 with the roll out of
the fix to be implemented on 23 March 2017. My involvement with this issue
was limited as I had only taken over MCCs as a product in February 2017 from
Steve Brown. For the most part Steve was still managing this product at the
time but I was the one who communicated with other teams within Post Office
to explain this issue. As such I do not have any recollection of this issue beyond
what I have seen in the email chain from Spring 2017, which suggests I was
made aware of this issue by Tracy Middleton, an Automated Payment Enquiry
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Team Leader, and that I was later contacted about the issue by Jane MacLeod
and spoke to lawyers from Bond Dickinson at their request.
29. Beyond those copied to the email chain, I do not think the issue with MCC cash
withdrawals was particularly widely known. I vaguely recall thinking at the time
that the transaction correction issued to affected branches would contain an
explanation as to what the issue was, but since it did not, the Financial Service
Centre ("FSC") received a few calls from postmasters when the transaction
correction was sent out to understand what it related to. From the email chain,
it looks like we had been focusing on getting money back to the branches as
quickly as possible. As I have had very limited interaction with postmasters, I
do not recall the issue impacting upon my subsequent dealings with them,
though I would try to ensure that effective communications went out to affected
branches together with the transaction corrections if a similar issue arose in the
future.
30. While I do not have any recollection of system wide issues with Horizon, I have
not carried out an extensive search of my emails or underlying documents to
identify all instances where problems arose.
RESOLUTION OF DISPUTES
Alleged Shortfalls
31. I recall having involvement in issues raised by postmasters to POL regarding
alleged shortfalls of money, where those disputes related to foreign currency,
although this was generally the result of transactions or declarations being
made incorrectly (i.e. human error). As the product manager, I might be asked
to provide input as to an issue from my perspective as the ‘product specialist’
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32.
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on foreign currency. This could include investigating why the shortfall had
occurred. Sometimes this would involve asking questions within the Post Office
business or to First Rate, in order to identify the cause of the shortfall. Following
my train of enquiry or conclusion on why a shortfall was caused, I might make
a recommendation as to what should be done with the shortfall and how it could
be resolved. However, this recommendation would be offered from my
perspective as a product specialist and I did not have ultimate responsibility in
deciding how any dispute should be resolved.
In particular, I recall that there were two types of alleged shortfalls which
postmasters raised in relation to foreign currency. I outline these below. I do not
recall specific incidents but rather recall that these types of issues were raised
on more than one occasion and that I had involvement in my role as product
manager.
The first type of shortfall was where a branch had ‘overestimated’ the number
of euros that it held. This could occur for example, where a branch typed in too
many Os into Horizon, when recording how many euros were held at that
branch. Subsequent to this inputting error, it was possible that the euro
exchange rate moved in such a way (‘against’ the branch) as to mean there
would be a loss showing on Horizon when the branch came to correct the
number of euros that had been input. By way of illustration, a branch could hold
1,000 euros but might mistakenly input that it held 100,000 euros into Horizon.
This means that when it came balancing the branch's accounts, there would be
a discrepancy of 99,000 euros. However, if the euro to pound exchange rate
moved ‘against’ the branch in the meantime, then there would be an additional
shortfall even if the branch had corrected the inputting error such that the
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99,000 euros loss was removed. This is because the transaction would be
recorded in pounds on Horizon, so that 99,000 euros may have been recorded
as an £80,000 gain at the time the input error was made, but when the
transaction was reversed 99,000 euros was worth £81,000. This would then
result in a £1,000 net 'loss'. Sometimes a branch would raise the issue with the
Post Office as it would not be aware as to why this additional loss was showing
on Horizon even after it had corrected the overestimation error. My input may
have been sought because the issue related to foreign currency and therefore
I may have been asked to assist with identifying the cause of the shortfall. In
this scenario, given that the loss was simply caused by the exchange rate
moving in relation to euros that did not actually exist (because they had been
inputted in error on Horizon), any shortfall would have merely represented a
paper loss. Therefore, I recall that such a shortfall would be written off by the
Post Office.
The second type of issue which I recall could occur, was where a branch
mistakenly recorded a transaction of selling currency to a customer as a
currency buy-back. This would be caused by the branch pressing the wrong
button on Horizon, i.e. using the 'buy' button rather than the ‘sell’ button. The
branch can ‘stock adjust' to correct the actual amounts of Sterling and foreign
currency held, but if the branch has sold its currency at the 'buy' rate rather than
the 'sell' rate, then it would still incur a shortfall by selling the currency to a
customer cheaper than it should have been sold for. This would result in the
customer having more euros than they would have done if they had been sold
the euros at the proper 'sell' rate rather than the 'buy' rate. In this case, if such
an issue was raised by the branch, then this shortfall was unfortunately due to
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the manual error of the person operating Horizon at the time of the transaction.
Given that the loss represented a real loss and there was nothing that we at the
Post Office could do to recover the loss, the branch would be responsible for
such a shortfall.
Process for raising and resolving disputes
35. As explained at paragraph 14, I recall that any foreign currency-related issues
were generally raised to me via the Helpline, Tier 2 team and/or Raj Kalsi. It
was also possible that issues might be raised with me via an Area Manager
with whom a postmaster had been in contact. On occasion, a postmaster might
raise their issue directly with POL's chief executive and I recall that the issue
might be 'escalated' back down to me and/or others within POL as appropriate.
I recall that issues would need to have been resolved within a month but that it
would be extremely rare for any issues to remain unresolved for a month or
longer.
36. I recall that there was some form of appeal process and that where a
postmaster appealed a dispute, then I might be contacted by someone within
the FSC who sat at Chesterfield. I cannot recall exactly who this person was. I
recall speaking to someone called Andrew Winn but I cannot recall if he was
the person handling appeals or not. My involvement or input into any appeal
process would have been similar to my involvement in any dispute or issue as
outlined at paragraph 31 above.
37. I Under the current system, I may be contacted about a dispute/issue via the
‘Issues Resolution’ team and the Helpline. My involvement in relation to such
issues is the same as outlined above.
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38. I do not recall having any contact or input from Fujitsu in the resolution of any
disputes that I had been involved in.
39. I cannot think of improvements that could have been made in the process,
although I was only involved in one part of the dispute resolution process as
outlined above. I am not aware of who would have been responsible for
implementing any improvements.
OTHER MATTERS
40. I do not consider the Chair of the Inquiry should be aware of any other matters
which I recall or have knowledge of.
Statement of truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Dated: 29' March 2023
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Index to First Witness Statement of Adrian Harvey Jarman
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No. I URN Document Description Control Number
1 POL00113425 Job Description document for I POL-0087423
role of FX Manager
2 POL00113426 I Email chain between Eddie POL-0087422
Jarman (POL Product
Manager) and Amy Prime
(Womble Bond Dickinson)
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