Post Office rejects computer report

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/post-office-r ... ml#TQ02E5n" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Post Office is "concerned" by the findings of a report into an alleged glitch in its computer system that led to employees claiming they had been falsely accused of financial irregularities.

A review was conducted by forensic accountants Second Sight after more than 100 sub-postmasters said they were wrongly prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting because of problems with the Horizon computer software leading to shortfalls being generated in their accounts.

The review, commissioned by the Post Office, found that it failed in a number of cases to look at the cause for the shortfalls before beginning court proceedings, the BBC reported.

Responding, the Post Office said it was concerned the report "repeats complaints made by a very small number of former postmasters, as well as a number of assertions and opinions", adding that no evidence had been offered to support the claims.

A spokesman said: " Over the past three years there have been exhaustive investigations which have not found any evidence of systemic problems with the Horizon system.

"The mediation scheme was set up to address individual complaints and that is what we have gone to great lengths to do - a number are now resolved. The complaints are considered on their facts and substance."

Alan Bates, chairman of Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, has previously said problems with the computer system had been reported since its introduction more than a decade ago.

The Post Office said there have been 150 applications to its Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme, established two years ago, out of almost 500,000 users.

[obiwanknobe]

Issue One - at the outset all parties agreed that the term 'Horizon System' would refer to all parts of the system that allowed operators to complete their tasks. This included not only hardware but network infrastructure, manual procedures, training as well as other components. POL continue to ignore this in order to rest on a 'no systemic' problems retort.

Issue Two - Errors in a computer system can manifest themselves under two distinct classes. One is a systemic error that is noticeable across the entire system, is capable of being identified most importantly replicated in a test environment. Only when the situation causing an error can be replicated can it be said to be fixed when the patch is applied and works. It is extremely important to note the use of POL language in this regard. There is plenty of evidence showing at times in the past there HAVE BEEN SYSTEMIC errors in the Horizon Computer system and these have been fixed.

Issue Three - Intermittent Errors are the other class which are much harder to find and replicate. Intermittent errors in a large organisation / computer system are first identified through the help desk by compiling a list of similar events and seeing a pattern emerge. POL help desk is by their own admission completely incapable of tracking this information. POL have been informed, with evidence, of such an intermittent error that has occurred many times in different locations which causes a financial loss to the subpostmaster and have failed to do anything about it.

Issue Four - The charge of false accounting. I think journalists up and down the country need to understand this term and what it means. Many of the complainants freely admitted to POL that they had signed off on accounts for the wrong figure while trying to look to see where the 'money' had disappeared to. In these cases the 'money' amounted to many thousands of pounds. Everybody seems to assume that the 'money' actually existed in the first place. That is not the case. You can easily enter a wrong figure into the Horizon computer system that generates an entry that makes POL think you owe them money while a customer of the post office has an unexpected windfall in their account. WIthout CCTV evidence these are impossible to track down and relies entirely on the honesty of the Post Office customer who being in receipt of goods not paid for are themselves committing an act of theft by finding. I deliberately use the term 'post office customer'. The person who has dishonestly benefited in this case is a customer of Post Office Ltd, not a customer of the SPMR. POL HAVE NEVER TO MY KNOWLEDGE assisted a SPMR in tracking down one of THEIR customers who have 'stolen' money in this way. There is much much more to this but the important point is that the money that the SPMR is charged as having stolen has never ever existed yet they end up having to repay that amount - no wonder given the poor pay they receive that they try to hide it while they find out where it has gone.

Compare that then to what happens in similar circumstances in a Crown Office - Post Office 'absorb' these losses themselves and they amount to many millions of pounds each year.

Issue Five - looking at the underlying firmware - the operating system that the HOL computer system relies on. This is Windows NT which Microsoft stopped supporting over a decade ago. In the last year of support Microsoft issued two updates to NT. The last only 6 months after the initial one. What one has to look at is the list of errors that Microsoft claimed to have 'fixed' in the 6 months between the two releases. If that amount of 'bugs' - systemic bugs throughout the NT user base worldwide came to light in a period of 6 months since the last release just how many now exist in NT now.
The Horizon computer system now interfaces with the use of modern high speed routers and technology that just didn't exist over ten years ago. A layman's example would be that the computers that Horizon computer system run on do not have USB ports because they did not exist way back then!

There is much more to say ....... and it will be said!

May the police force be with you Ms Vennels


Obi

[subbie]

Read the Second Sight report here http://t.co/g1AOQ3gNmM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Make your own mind up

Subbie