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Witness Name: Martin Roberts
Statement No: 1
Dated: 24 September 2024
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POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF MARTIN ROBERTS
I, Martin Roberts, will say as follows:
1. lam making this statement in response to a Request dated 13 August 2024 for
information pursuant to Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006, regarding matters
within Phase 7 of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. The Request contained 3
questions, which I have endeavored to address within my statement below.
2. I have had the assistance of a solicitor in drafting this statement.
CAREER HISTORY
3. In 1983 I left Monks Park School, Bristol, at the age of 16.
4. I then joined the John Lewis Partnership Trainee Manager Programme in Bristol
(the ‘TM Programme’) in 1983.
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. The TM Programme lasted 2 years and was focussed on equipping trainees
with key skills related to customer contact and the delivery of high customer
service, as well as learning every other aspect of how a large department store
runs. During the 2-year training, I gained experience in multiple departments
and business areas. The TM Programme also provided me with the opportunity
to complete a course in business studies.
. After completing the TM Programme, I successfully became a Section Manager
and remained in this role for 6 years.
. I left John Lewis Partnership in 1989 and joined the Tesco Regional
Management Trainee Program (the ‘RMT Programme’) that same year. I began
my career with Tesco during a time of significant growth for the business.
. The RMT Programme lasted 2 years and by the end of my training I was
appointed to my first store and following success in this role, I went on to lead
many stores across the South West of England, including a large superstore in
Bristol and also the management of over 20 small express stores. I was able to
carry out many store visits in this role. I particularly enjoyed this as I considered
my colleagues who were working in Tesco’s stores to be the beating heart of
the business, and I wanted to ensure that they were happy with our ways of
working, and if not, look at what could be done to improve.
. In 2003 I joined Sainsbury's as their Regional Manager for Middlesex. At the
time Sainsbury’s was operating in 33 regions and Middlesex was the most
poorly performing in the whole company. I had 25 stores under my
management and my role was to turn around the performance of this part of the
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business. I visited all 25 stores under my management to talk to employees and
I formed listening groups to hear about what was and wasn’t working for them,
so that effective changes could be made to drive improvement. I implemented
various changes across the region and performance improved in the stores
under my management. For those stores that had made a significant
turnaround, I designated them as ‘academy stores’ to show others within the
region what could be achieved. Within a year Middlesex went from the worst
performing region to the best performing region.
10.In 2006 I became a Zone Managing Director within Sainsbury's responsible for
all the regions that fell into the north zone. This came with an increased level of
responsibility as I now had approximately 105 stores under my management,
and 30,000 staff. From there I then took on the UK wide Director of Retail
Change role which involved increasing productivity and efficiency across the
whole business. At the time there was no retail change team within Sainsbury's,
so I built the team from nothing and within a period of 2 years I had grown the
team to 200 people and I had developed a change programme called ‘Lean
Stores’. Stores and colleagues were at the heart of the change programme,
and in many cases their ideas lead to more freed up time to be spent serving
customers better.
1
.In 2008 I was made aware of a role which had come up at Sainsbury's Bank —
Director of Retail Distribution. I saw this as another opportunity to expand my
skill set and retail experience as I had never worked directly in finance. I
therefore applied for the role and was successful. The role involved leading the
daily operations for the whole of the UK, which included managing retail
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distribution, the creation of new products, selling of credit card products and
more. I stayed in this role for 2 years until 2010, during which I supported the
business in navigating the financial crisis, which affected Sainsbury's bank
significantly. Not only were many customers affected, a lot of my colleagues
and board directors who had invested savings into Sainsbury's Bank had
suffered significant losses, which led to a very distressing and difficult period
for my colleagues in their personal and working lives. I was involved in
navigating this difficult period and providing support and assurance to
customers and team members going forward.
12.In 2010 I left the company and spent some time working on a consultancy basis.
During this time I worked on a project for Morrisons helping them to develop
processes and procedures. Much of the work drew on the change programme
initiatives that I had delivered during my time as Director of Retail Change at
Sainsbury's.
13.In 2011 I became the Retail Director for the DIY business at Wickes. In this role
I led operations across the UK and sat on Wickes’ Board. The business strategy
which I implemented for the business was ‘great stores, with great knowledge
and great service.’ Wickes formed part of the Travis Perkins Group and at the
time were considered the best performing team within the group. We had
developed good, customer-centric and family-oriented values across the
business and were the largest DIY business in the country.
14.In 2013 I joined Vodafone UK as a Retail Director. I saw this as another
opportunity to advance my career, as I had not previously worked in the tech
sector nor in an international business. I was responsible for leading retail
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operations across the whole of the UK, which went beyond the company’s
consumer board. A big part of the role was focused on building a friendly and
forward thinking culture, which entailed looking after store image and design,
customer experience and relationships with other phone companies. I was also
involved in supporting the company during its acquisition of Phones 4 U, to
increase the company’s presence of sites across the UK.
15.A year later in 2014 I took on a Global Retail Distribution Director role for
Vodafone across 7 countries. The aim was to implement a global strategy in all
7 countries. The role was challenging and required a lot of international travel.
16. In 2015 I joined B&M as UK Operations Director. I worked in this role for 6 years
between 2015 and 2021, during which time I developed and managed an
opening programme of 800 stores. I was also faced with the challenge of
navigating the business through the Coronavirus Pandemic, during which B&M
became an essential retailer. During my time with the business B&M grew
significantly and moved from a FTSE 250 listing to become a FTSE 100
company.
17.1 left B&M in 2021 as I wanted to diversify my career. During this time I did some
private equity work, and I took on the chairmanship of 2 companies — GoAudits
and Taxi Studio. At present, I am still the Chairman of GoAudits.
18.In mid-2021 I was contacted by a recruiter who believed that my experience in
retail was suited to the role of Group Chief Retail Officer within Post Office
Limited (POL). I attended initial interviews with Angela Evans (CPO), which
then led to further interviews with Nick Read (CEO) and POL’s Non-Executive
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Directors and Chairman. Whilst I knew of a number of people who were with
POL at the time I did not know anyone personally and had not worked with
anyone at POL during any of my former roles.
19.The role was described as the leadership and future network development of
11,500 Post Office branches, which would also include responsibility for
working with Strategic Partners and key Stakeholders. I was contacted by Nick
Read on 31 December 2021, who asked me to confirm if I would be interested
in taking the position. By that point I had read Nick Wallis’ book ‘The Great Post
Office Scandal’, and I was shocked and saddened by what various sub-
postmasters across the country had gone through. I understood that the role
would entail significant challenges and responsibility, particularly in relation to
re-building trust between POL and its sub-postmasters, and implementing
positive change going forward in a way that places sub-postmasters at the heart
of the business. Nevertheless, I felt that I had the necessary skillset and
previous experience to pursue the role. I confirmed to Nick Read that I would
take the job and I agreed to start in February 2022.
DEPARTURE FROM POL
20. After approximately 2 years in my role, in January 2024 various members of the
General Executive (GE), including myself, were informed they would have to
step down from the GE. The GE would no longer exist and a new smaller Senior
Executive Group (the ‘SEG’) would be formed to conduct business going
forward. I was also told that I would no longer be reporting in to Nick Read, and
instead I would report in to the deputy CEO, Owen Woodley. I believe this
organisational change may have resulted from a recommendation by Grant
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Thornton following a review by them, however, this is only my assumption and
I do not know this for certain. I have not seen a copy of Grant Thornton's report.
21.On 1 May 2024, Nigel Railton was appointed by the then Business Secretary,
Kemi Badenoch, as the new interim Chair of POL. On 19 June 2024 I was
informed in a meeting with Owen Woodley and Steve Muino (Head of People
Partnering — Technology) that along with Mr Railton’s appointment came a new
brief from the Shareholder Executive (ShEx), which included a strategic review
of POL. The review would conclude in Autumn 2024 under the new Government
and there would be a removal of some roles from POL, along with the
appointment of some new roles. As part of this review a decision was made to
appoint a new interim Chief Commercial Officer within POL from 1 July 2024,
and it was therefore considered that my role as Group Chief Retail Officer was
no longer required in the business. I was informed that POL would consult
further on this matter.
22.During the period which followed, I continued to carry out my role and duties
but I was alive to the fact that there was a lot of uncertainty around my future
within POL, and that there may not be an alternative role for me in the business
going forward.
23.In a consultation meeting that I had with Owen Woodley and Steve Muino on
10 July 2024, POL’s position in relation to no longer requiring my role within the
business was reaffirmed to me. Given the risk of my role being made redundant,
I sought to take voluntary redundancy. This was agreed and I continued to work
with POL over the next couple of weeks to agree the terms of my exit. My last
day working for POL was 2 August 2024.
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MY ROLE AND ACHIEVEMENTS AS GROUP CHIEF RETAIL OFFICER FOR POL
24.During my time as Group Chief Retail Officer for POL I was responsible for the
leadership and network development of approximately 11,500 Post Office
branches. This included around 9,000 traditional branches and approximately
2,500 in retail franchises. I therefore had to work closely and maintain
relationships with Strategic Partners such as WHSmith, Asda and Co-
operative. I understood from the original mandate for the role that there was a
need to improve retail operations and to re-build the connection and trust
between the business and sub-postmasters. This would involve working with
stakeholders across the business, including the Government, to identify the
challenges and opportunities that sub-postmasters and Partners face, and
working together to make Post Office branches profitable and successful.
25.When I first joined POL I took some time during the course of 2022 to
understand the workings of the business and what had happened in the past,
so that I could put in place an effective strategy for the future. I was also tasked
with building a team to assist me with delivering this strategy. Having read about
some experiences of sub-postmasters I wanted to ensure that the strategy I
developed put sub-postmasters at the heart of what we did and involved them
in the process of driving change as much as possible.
26.1 ultimately developed a ‘Retail Strategy House’ setting out various pillars of
priorities, to be driven by key retail objectives. The ultimate goal was to build a
modern, commercially sustainable, well run, customer centric business, with
sub-postmasters at the heart.
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27.As alluded to earlier in this statement, it has always been my firm belief that the
first step to bringing about positive change in a business lies with involving
those who are at the heart of the business, in this case — the thousands of sub-
postmasters across the country. Therefore, as part of delivering the above
objectives I set up the ‘Perfect Days’ and ‘Adopt an Area’ initiatives which
encouraged senior leaders to get out and visit branches across the country to
speak with sub-postmasters, assist with any challenges, conduct listening
groups and help to make a difference. I conducted many visits myself across
the UK every week to speak with sub-postmasters, and I encouraged POL’s
non-executive directors to join me on a few occasions. I also conducted my own
listening group which I met with approximately every 6-8 weeks. In the
2023/2024 period I believe approximately 480 branch visits by around 130
colleagues under the ‘Perfect Days’ and ‘Adopt an Area’ initiatives had been
conducted.
28.Whilst the role was a very challenging one, I feel that my team and I achieved
a lot in respect of the objectives that I had set for the 2023/2024 period. These
included:
a. We successfully enabled the Mails Strategy and in particular we
achieved circa 40,000 new non-Royal mail carrier proposition as part of
that strategy, generating additional Real Earnings Management (REM).
b. In preparation for the Inquiry, we received 1,900 sub-postmaster surveys
and continued our development of a Postmaster Engagement
Framework. We also recruited and embedded a new Postmaster
Experience Director, Mark Eldridge (an experienced sub-postmaster).
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During the peak of the Inquiry, we also hosted regular Retail Team
Support calls and attended Restorative Justice Meetings.
. We reshaped the Network to improve sustainability for both POL and
sub-postmasters and delivered the strongest network numbers in over a
decade.
. We saw improvements in branch profitability, exceeding our network
sales budget. The 2022/2023 REM for branch profitability saw a 4%
increase from the previous year, which enabled the highest pay-out in 7
years.
. To address the root cause of sub-postmaster losses, we conducted
10,273 ‘Operational Excellence’ visits to 5,601 branches. Operational
robustness of branches improved and we saw branch discrepancies
reduce by £10m, the value of transaction corrections were down by 33%,
dispute discrepancies down by 17% and we were hitting our target in
terms of sub-postmaster complaint response time, with 88% of
complaints being dealt with and closed within 10 days.
We carried out 12,900 commercial excellence visits across over 6,376
branches, which had a positive impact on branch income, particularly
related to travel money/travel insurance and parcel volume per branch.
. To improve customer experience, we rebuilt POLs website to ensure it
met customers’ and colleagues’ needs and conducted an end to end
redesign of the customer complaints process. We also relaunched a
travel app and integrated 700,000 customers across the platform, as well
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as leading a successful summer travel campaign, which delivered £1.7m
of travel money income and £4m travel insurance income.
h. We ran multiple in-person conferences with excellent feedback received
and our metrics improving year on year. We also ran monthly Regional
Forums across 12 regions in the UK and hundreds of sub-postmasters
became involved in projects, testing, change management and general
feedback, as listening and support was a key objective in 2023/24.
29.In addition to the above achievements, I personally received a high ‘Ways of
Working’ rating of 6.09 out of 7 for the 2022/2023 year, which was a form of
360 degree feedback carried out for the purpose of my annual review. I recall
that I also received really positive feedback throughout the year which I felt
reflected my genuine commitment and passion to being an advocate for sub-
postmasters, being sub-postmaster and partner-centric and being a driver for
change. I was proud of this feedback, as I felt that it illustrated that what my
team and I had set out to do, to improve POL for both the business and its sub-
postmasters, was heading in the right direction.
30. Before I left POL, I had put in place an updated ‘Retail House Strategy’ for the
2024/2025 period with the areas of focus being: Driving profitability, Rebuilding
Trust, Transforming Technology and Driving Retail Performance.
31.At POL I believe that my team and I took decisive positive steps towards re-
building a relationship of trust between POL and its sub-postmasters, as well
as delivering on sales and costs targets and taking steps to deliver a stable
network.
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32.Other than the matters set out above in this statement, there are no further
matters that I wish to bring to the attention of the Inquiry Chair.
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
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