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Witness Name: Carol Armitage
Statement No: WITN07490100
Dated: 1 February 2023
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF Carol Susan Armitage
I, Carol Armitage will say as follows...
I have been asked to make a witness statement under Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules
2006 under a request dated 3 January 2023 regarding training.
INTRODUCTION
1. First of all, I should explain that I am now 71 years of age and I retired from
the Post Office in July 2016 so it is difficult to remember specific events.
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
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2. I first joined Post Office Ltd in February 1970. After an extensive training
course I worked as a Post Office Counter Clerk at Huddersfield. This involved
serving customers with a large number of transactions and balancing my
stock unit at the end of the week. I also traveled to other branch offices in the
area when they need staff due to holiday times.
3. From there I progressed through various departments to eventually end up as
the cashier in charge of the main cash remittance unit at Huddersfield. This at
the time dealt with the supply of cash to the smaller sub post offices and the
accounting of spare cash and cheques submitted by them to us for banking. I
have asked when I became the cashier at the main remittance unit in
Huddersfield. Unfortunately due to the passage of time I am unable to provide
the year in question
4. After the first Post Office reorganisation I was moved to the District Office in
Leeds as Manager for Customer Services. There I helped to distribute the
weekly newsletter to offices and aided with complaints from members of the
public. I have asked when I moved to the District Office in Leeds
Unfortunately I am unable to provide the year in question
5. Then I became Audit Manager for offices part of the Bradford Area. This
involved supervising audits both financial and procedural at both Crown
Branches and Sub Post Offices. Eventually they cut the teams. I have been
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asked when I became Audit Manager in Bradford. Unfortunately I cannot
remember the year.
. Post Office Counters then reorganised again in 1993 and I was given the
chance of voluntary redundancy which I took in July of that year.
. I must point out that the last two posts may have been the other way round I
moved around so much under organisation it is difficult now to remember the
order.
. After that time I decided to set myself up as a holiday relief for sub
postmasters, running their offices when they were on holiday. I worked in
various branches using different methods of accounting. Manual - Recording
everything down on paper. Computerised - Using either the Post Office
Capture System or a program developed by a former sub postmaster Richard
Jackson. Both of the systems were basic accounting systems and reduced
manual calculation.
. After a period of time I realised that monetary commitments meant I needed to
find full time work again, it was then I saw a job advertised for the newly
formed Post Office Network Business Support Centre.
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10.1 joined the NBSC in February 2000 after passing the Post Office aptitude
test. I was told that although I had passed it in 1970 it was a long time ago. I
have been asked to describe the Post Office aptitude test and what skills and
knowledge were involved. I cannot remember what was required
1
.I then went through another intensive period of training both of products and
services and the operation of the newly implemented Horizon System. After
the training we were gradually introduced into the live helpline. Not many
branches had been rolled out as such and then it was not so busy. We started
off by listening into calls with help of a trainer and eventually graduated to
taking these calls ourselves. The calls were from sub postmasters who need
help on accounting for various transactions on the system and dealing with
the accounting of error notices. I have asked to give my recollections of the
training received on the Horizon IT system, As far as I can recollect it dealt
with recording different transactions on the system, how to pull off reports and
balancing the system. I considered that this was accurate to assist others
when both entering transactions and navigating the system.
12.As Horizon rolled out nationally the staff increased and as new sub
postmasters were appointed the calls increased. The nature of the calls also
changed. As well as guiding the sub postmaster through the transactions we
also got calls from offices who found it difficult to balance the office, I have
been asked to give further details of the difficulties SPMs reported when
balancing. Problems were offices reporting large discrepancies in cash and
not knowing where to look, also in the case of newer SPMs lack of knowledge
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on how to correctly produce the stock unit balance and roll the stock unit and
office over into the next accounting period. Whether it was inadequate training
or simply because they only need to do this once a week at first and then only
monthly I am unable to say. Also, in the case of offices operating more than
one stock unit problems arose with putting through transactions in the
incorrect stock unit
13.NBSC had a computerised system which required us to log each call under
the branch name, name of sub postmaster and a brief description of the query
whether it was balancing or transactional. At quiet times all these calls were
dealt with straight away but at busier times priority was given to those with a
customer waiting. No checks on balances were done at this time.
14.To help guide us through those calls the system we used provided a link into
the Post Office Transactional Instructions and also checks for us to make as
to how the office should look for any discrepancy. We were asked to make
notes on the system as to what we had informed them.
15.1 must point out that although we asked leading questions it was sometimes
difficult to understand what exactly was the problem. I, myself always tended
to see a manual balance in front of me as well as the computerised Horizon
one.
16. If an office had failed to balance we asked them to run off several reports from
the system as to what had been booked into the branch and out from the
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remittance unit and stock centre. They were then asked to check these
reports against the manual advices received.
17.When offices rang regarding a shortage, they were also asked if they were
looking at what we called a balance snapshot or an actual trial balance. If I
might explain, a balance snapshot is what the Horizon system thinks you have
based on what has been recorded, but, as offices could have selected the
incorrect stamp or settled the transaction to cash instead of cheque then this
was not always accurate;. They were asked to recheck their cash and stock
and then make adjustments accordingly. In the majority of these cases the
stock unit balanced. I have been asked to describe the checks that were
carried out then if the office failed to balance after rechecking their cash and
stock. I asked the office to run various reports which re listed below to try and
identify major gains or shortages.
Suspense Account
e Shows uncharged receipts and unclaimed payments brought to
account or redeemed. Checked this against instructions from
Chesterfield sent to offices when error notice received. This check
was to ensure office dealt with correctly
Stock Unit Report
e View how many stock unit make up the office balance
Users
e How many people allowed access to system
Transaction Log
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(searched by either User, stock unit, time span, amount. Receipts
or payment
Rems in
When stock or cash scanned in and booked into system. Cash was
automatically remmed in when pouch was received but stock pouch
had to scanned in first then individual stock items manually booked
into system
Rems Out
When stock or cash scanned in and booked out of system. Also that
cheque remmitance out agreed with individual daily cheque listings
Transfers
When cash and stock transferred into or out of a stock unit
Reversals — New and Existing
Anything that was barcoded was classed as Existing
Event Log
Tells when user logged in also when cash declaration made
Reversal slips
If office had stated that had reversed transaction but still there
checked reversal slip to see if transaction showing or just
settlement element. Not possible to reverse existing transaction
twice.
Adjust stock.
Shows whether stock adjusted positive or negative.
Cash, stamp and stock declarations.
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e In the majority of cases office only need to make one cash and
stamp declaration and assign it a number, However in some cases
someone had already made one previously and instead of over
writing it with the new figures the SMR made a new one. This would
create a subsequent large surplus in the branch as_ both
declarations added together. In the case of the stock declaration
office were not advised to use it but to use stock adjust instead. If
the branch inadvertently went into this icon assigned it a number
then came out without entering anything the Horizon system took it
to mean that there was no stock thus creating a loss.
18.NBSC advisors were split into teams under a team leader who was there to
give further help when requested and also sometimes listen into calls to
evaluate the performance of individual advisors. As it got busier we were
given what was called a call handling target. I cannot remember now what the
time was, as I never met it. I was more concerned with making sure that the
sub postmaster was fully aware of the instructions and comfortable with my
reply before terminating the call. I have been asked what the call target was
and by how much on average did I miss it. I cannot recollect the target or
even if a penalty was occurred for failure but am certain I probably only met it
once or twice in my career with NBSC and to my knowledge did not receive
any penalty. We were constantly reminded at individual performance briefings
of the need to meet targets but I do not consider any undue pressure was put
upon me.
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19.As far as I am aware all advisors were courteous and helpful.
20.As regards the Horizon system I can only recollect one problem that was
noted. It was a receipts and payments mismatch. All calls that mentioned this
were to referred to the Horizon Technical Helpdesk. No further information as
to the problem was provided. I myself cannot recollect ever receiving such a
call. I have been asked what year the receipts and payments mismatch case
appeared on the knowledge base, unfortunately I am unable to recall the
specific year only that the information was there.
2
.I must also point out that NBSC dealt only with transactional and balancing
enquiries, all calls that involved the inability to access Horizon such as the
caller being locked out, power outages and screen freezes were transferred to
the Technical Helpdesk.
22.1 finally left NBSC in July 2016 after yet another reorganisation in which NBSC
was transferred from Wath Upon Dearne to Chesterfield
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
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1 February 2023
Dated:
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