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Witness Name: Lynne Sagar
Statement No.: WITN09040100
Dated: 5‘ April 2023
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF LYNNE SAGAR (née FALLOWFIELD)
I, LYNNE SAGAR (née FALLOWFIELD), will say as follows...
INTRODUCTION
1. lam a former employee of Post Office Limited and held the position of Service
Continuity Support and subsequently Problem Manager from May 2005 to
April 2007.
2. This witness statement is made to assist the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry
(the “Inquiry”) with the matters set out in the Rule 9 Request dated 6!" March
2023 (the “Request’).
Background
3. The Inquiry has asked me to set out briefly my professional background. In
1989, after completing my ‘A’ levels I joined the Royal Mail Group/Royal Mail
Parcels (subsequently Parcelforce Worldwide) with most of the roles being
administrative within the Commercial departments.
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4. I transferred to Post Office Ltd in November 2002 and joined the Performance
Support Team in Chesterfield, with the main task to support Sub postmasters
with transactional errors. Prior to joining the Service Continuity Team in May
2005, I held various roles within the Network Business Support Centre
(NBSC) including Customer Relations Officer and External Helpline Quality
Assurance Officer.
5. Upon leaving the Service Continuity Team I moved to the Service Delivery
team and held the role as a Telephony Service Manager, the role entailed
working as part of a team to manage the outsourced suppliers of the Post
Office HomePhone and Broadband service, and the Customer Service and
Complaint line of business. I subsequently moved within the Service Delivery
team, where I held the role of a Service Delivery Manager (Mails) until leaving
the Post Office in August 2016. This role entailed working as part of a team to
manage operational and service level agreements and identify any service
improvements for the contract between Royal Mail Group and the Post Office.
6. Upon leaving the Post Office I gained employment in October 2016 at an
elastomer & polymer manufacturing company (Aerospace & Defence).
Working within the Commercial and Customer Service department I have held
roles as a Program Co-ordinator and Customer Services Manager.
Problem Management
7. I have been asked to explain my responsibilities as a Problem Manager. I do
not remember in detail the role as it was approximately 18 years ago. From
what I can remember the main role was to manage the day-to-day relationship
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with Fujitsu Services to ensure branch availability. This included investigating
and resolving on-line issues within branches which could include hardware or
network issues.
8. I have been asked to describe any training that I received for my role as a
Problem Manager. Given the length of time that has elapsed, it is difficult for
me to recall any formal training. To the best of my knowledge, it is most likely
the training I would have received for the role would have been side by side
training with other incumbent team members.
9. I have been asked who I would have worked with during my role as a Problem
Manager, again due to the length of time that has elapsed I cannot recall in
any detail my time as a Problem Manager. The role was reactive in nature
and as a team we would have worked with the following teams:
a. Network Business Support Centre
b. Area teams as required.
c. Fujitsu Service Managers
d. Sub postmasters
Callendar Square
10.1 have been asked to describe my views of the robustness of the Horizon IT
System prior to becoming aware of the Callendar Square bug. Given the
length of time that has elapsed, I do not recall the Callendar Square bug or
the specific incident. I can see from document POL00081928 I was aware at
the time and to the best of my knowledge would have involved all appropriate
teams such as Fujitsu Services to resolve the incident. I do not ever recall
having any doubts regarding the robustness of the Horizon IT system.
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11.1 have been asked when I first became aware of the Callendar Square bug.
As mentioned in my comments above I do not have any recollection of that
specific incident.
12. I have been asked following the awareness of the Callendar Square bug how
many branches did I think were affected and how many branches could
possibly be affected. Given the length of time that has elapsed, I have no
recollection of the Callendar Square bug or the specific incident.
13.1 have been asked to describe what steps I or the Post Office would have
taken to obtain further information regarding the Callendar Square bug and if
it affected any other branches. To the best of my knowledge the process
would have been to engage Fujitsu Services and work with the Service
Managers to identify any potential issues affecting the specific branch and
identifying any other branches affected by the same issue, whether by calls in
to the Horizon Service desk or the NBSC.
14.1 have been asked whether my understanding of how many branches were or
could possibly have been affected by the Callendar Square bug has changed
over time. As I have no recollection of the specific incident, I was not aware
the subject of this Inquiry was connected to any incident raised during my time
in the Problem Management team until the witness statement request was
received.
15.1 have been asked if I was the Problem Manager responsible for the Callendar
Square bug following its identification. I can see from the email trail in
document POL00081928 I was named as a contact point by Gary Blackburn,
but I cannot confirm that I was the overall Problem Manager for the incident.
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16.1 have been asked to explain how the incident was managed following its
discovery by the Post Office. To the best of my knowledge the incident would
have been raised to Fujitsu Services, to either a Service Manager or the
Horizon System Helpdesk for investigation. Updates to this open incident
would have been fed back periodically including any fixes required to all
involved stakeholders. I do not recall any specific details.
17.1 have been asked who would have been responsible for disseminating
knowledge of the existence, nature and extent of the incident. As I have no
recollection of the processes and procedures or the specific incident due to
the time that has elapsed, I can only provide assumptions based on general
ways of working that any stakeholder in the incident would have been updated
during the progression of the investigation either by the Problem Management
team, NBSC or Horizon System Helpdesk. For any individual branch
incidents, the stakeholders would include but not limited to the NBSC, Area
teams, Sub postmasters. For any incidents that affected the entire Post
Office network, for example any major incident that prevented any
transactions, this would have a included a more senior circulation. I do not
recall specific names or job titles within the Senior circulation list but to the
best of my knowledge would have been within the hierarchy of my team.
18.As I have no recollection of the specific incident, I cannot comment who was
or would have been informed of the incident. I can see from the email trail in
document POL00081928, Gary Blackburn, who to the best of my knowledge
was either my manager or a senior team member, as well as Service
Managers from Fujitsu were involved and would have been kept updated.
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19.As I have no recollection of the specific incident, I cannot comment who was
or would have been informed of the incident or any timescales. As answered
in point 17 above any identified stakeholders at the time would have been
kept updated at appropriate intervals during the investigation dependant on
the severity.
20. I have been asked whether any of the following groups were not provided
2
information on the Callendar Square bug and, if so, why: those within Post
Office responsible for audit; those within Post Office responsible for
investigating and / or prosecuting sub-postmasters or other employees; the
NBSC; those within Post Office responsible for training others; contract
advisors / managers; senior management within Post Office; the Post Office
Board; and sub-postmasters and those working within Crown Office branches.
As I have no recollection of the specific incident, I cannot comment who was
not informed of the incident.
.As I have no recollection of the specific incident, I cannot comment what
additional investigations would have taken place.
22.As I have no recollection of the specific incident, I cannot comment on the
steps taken to ensure the incident was rectified.
23.1 have been asked whether my views on the robustness of the Horizon IT
System changed following the discovery of the Callendar Square bug. Given
the length of time that has elapsed, I do not recall the Callendar Square bug
or the specific incident. To the best of my knowledge, I do not recall having
any doubts regarding the robustness of the Horizon IT system up until my
leaving Post Office Limited in 2016.
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24.1 have been asked if I would have done anything differently in relation to this
incident knowing what we know now. With the benefit of hindsight, as with
anything, I am sure certain things would have been done differently but it is
difficult to respond to this in specifics as I have fairly limited recollection to
particular incidents in my time in the Problem Management team.
25.1 have been asked if I have any recollection to having a conversation with
Mandy Talbot regarding the Callendar Square bug as outlined in document
POL00070131. Due to the length of time that has elapsed, no I do not recall a
conversation with Mandy Talbot.
26.1 have been asked if I was involved in the civil proceedings referred to in
document POL00070133. To the best of my knowledge, I was not involved in
these proceedings.
27.I have been asked what was done in respect of problem management of the
Callendar Square bug by December 2006 or thereafter. As I have no
recollection of the specific incident, I cannot comment what additional
activities were undertaken.
OTHER BUGS, ERRORS, AND DEFECTS WITHIN THE HORIZON IT SYSTEM
28.I have been asked which if any of the bugs described in the Technical
Appendix in document POL00022841 (paragraphs 128-140 and 152-418)
Given the length of time that has elapsed and as I had left the Problem
Management team in April 2007, I do not recall any of the other bugs, errors
or defects listed.
29.As I have no recollection of any other bugs, errors or defects and left the
Problem Management Team in April 2007, I am unable to answer to the how
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and when these bugs were identified and what steps were taken to rectify
them.
30. I have been asked to describe my current views on the Horizon system. I
left Post Office Limited in 2016 and up until the news reports and subsequent
Television programme was not aware of the impact and actions taken against
sub postmasters. My view regarding Horizon Online is that I hope that better
safeguards have been put in place to identify issues sooner.
31.1 have nothing further to bring to the Chair's attention.
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Signed:
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Index to First Witness Statement of Lynne Sagar (nee Fallowfield)
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URN
Document
Description
Control Number
POL00022841
Technical Appendix
to Judgment (NO 6)
“Horizon Issues"
POL-0019320
In
POL00070131
Email from and
Lynne Fallowfield to
Mandy Talbot, copied
to Gary Blackburn,
Sandra Mackay,
Shaun Turner and
Stephen Dilley, re:
Callendar Square
URGENT, with chain
POL-0066694
loo
POL00070133
Email from Mandy
Talbot to Steve
Parker re: Callendar
Square URGENT,
with chain
POL-0066696
a
POL00081928
Emails between
Nicola Sherry, Mandy
Talbot, Stephen
Dillley, Keith Baines
and Clare Wardle re
Callender Square &
Lee Castleton
POL-0078491
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