WITNO7380100
WITNO7380100
Witness Name: Peter Holmes
Statement No.: WITNO7380100
Dated:23 March 2023
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST STATEMENT OF PETER HOLMES
I, Peter Holmes, will say as follows...
INTRODUCTION
1. lama former employee of Post Office Limited (‘POL’) and held the position of
Service Support Advisor with the Network Business Support Centre (‘NBSC’).
2. This witness statement is made to assist the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry (the
‘Inquiry’) with the matters set out in Rule 9 Request dated 30 January 2023
(the ‘Request’)
BACKGROUND
3. Prior to employment with POL I was employed as branch manager of a multiple
news agency responsible for all aspects of staff, cash and security.
Page 1 of 5
WITNO7380100
WITNO7380100
. I joined post office Ltd in June 2000 as part of a new tier two level team of
advisors for the rollout of the new Horizon system for NBSC helpline for
subpostmasters, their staff and Crown offices. I left Post office Ltd team January
2013 to join Royal mail team within the same building, I left this position June
2013 to take early retirement.
. am not aware of what the training process was for subpostmasters or their
staff.
. To the best of my recollection. At the start of my employment, There was a full
day induction course followed by 5 weeks of counter training in a training room
at a nearby Crown Post Office set up with horizon systems set in training mode.
We covered all aspects as if working on the Post office counter including
balancing how to account for monies coming in and out and all security
processes. This was followed by a further 4 weeks of training at NBSC on their
systems how to deal and log calls from PMs entering calls on the system and
finding information via the knowledge Base on the system.
. Calls ‘were logged by the tier one advisors if they were unable to answer the
query or the caller wanted specific information the call would be transferred to
ourselves on second tier, this could involve navigation on Horizon talking
through which icons to use.
. [had call monitoring through out my employment and extra training was given
if needed.
Page 2 of 5
WITNO7380100
WITNO7380100
9. Group Training was given at regular times for updates and when new processes
were introduced.
10.Client managers were invited to NBSC to talk and demonstrate changes and
their processes.
11.1 was at various times also invited to Crown offices to observe processes thus
increasing my knowledge.
12. First line (tier 1) came under Royal Mail, second line (tier 2) came under Post
Office Ltd. Some years into my employment NBSC changed from Post Office
Ltd to come under Royal Mail call handling process of calls but my contract
stayed with the same terms as under Post office Ltd. We were advised this was
done for better call handling practice as Royal Mail Helpline worked in a way
different to Post office Ltd. I believe they worked on a more scripted process
where tier 2 worked from the same knowledge base on the computer but also
used own knowledge which affected the times spent on calls.
13.1 cannot recollect the correct amount of time given to answer calls or if different
tiers were. given different times, I seem to recall a figure of 240 seconds to
resolve the call but calls could take longer on second line (tier 2 ).
14. During my:time at NBSC a new level of advisors was introduced called ESG, I
was part of this team, the team was able to call offices back, spend longer time
with them until a resolution was achieved be it cash or a transaction problem.
Page 3 of 5
WITNO7380100
WITNO7380100
We could get further information from client managers who were responsible
for clients like DVLA, UKPA, Banking, utilities etc.
15.Calls were taken when an office has entered the wrong amount on horizon for
a customer on an e.g. AP or banking transaction. There was a set process we
had where we could try a retrieve the error, sometimes offices would press zero
and then double zero twice in error i.e. making a 20.00 transaction into 200.00.
If this was not noticed a loss would occur.
16.1 dealt with balancing queries sometimes spending an hour or
longer, sometimes doing multiple trial balances, we would go through all
aspects of cash and stock figures, even asking if they had countered in their
cash rem they had that week, a few said no they don't count that as they believe
it is correct as it has come from the cash centre, I advised all cash and stock
should be counted on delivery as discrepancies can still occur.
17.Sometimes we were successful in finding the error to a satisfactory conclusion
but if we couldn't find the discrepancy the office had to rollover with the
discrepancy be it a gain or loss.
18.One example I remember was a Pm was showing £502 loss, after spending
sometime and asking him about cash and stock and numerous trial balances
the Pm finally said he was £500 up the previous week but believed that was
his, advised he will have-misbalanced last week and to put it back into Post
office cash pm balanced to £2.
Page 4 of 5
WITNO7380100
WITNO7380100
19. If the office has a discrepancy that cannot be found the correct process to follow
is to go to trial balance and rollover showing the discrepancy even if it is only a
few pounds or pence loss or gain and then to go to balance again altering the
cash figures by the discrepancy to rollover again to a zero discrepancy. I found
some offices went to trial balance to get the discrepancy, did not rollover to
show'this discrepancy but altered the cash figure go to trial and rollover with a
zero discrepancy so not showing the office had a discrepancy no matter what
amount. The cash account would always then show a zero balance,
20.The Horizon deals with stock units either Shared - where 2 or more use the
same cash and stock Individual - where 1 person has their own cash and
stock When some offices were on shared units with more than 1 member of
staff and suffering losses I would advise to put each staff on individual units
then would have a better idea of where any discrepancies would be when
balancing , some office said no to this idea.
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Page 5 of 5