Senior officers in Tony Blair’s authorities have been conscious of the technical points with the Horizon submit workplace laptop system, the inquiry into the IT scandal has heard.
Between 2000 and 2014, greater than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses (SPMs) have been prosecuted based mostly on info from the accounting system.
Since then, many have had felony convictions overturned – and tens of millions of kilos in compensation has been awarded.
On Tuesday, Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, referred to a briefing from the Treasury in 1998 to then-prime minister Tony Blair which outlined a “list of failures” in relation to the rolling out of the system.
That briefing said impartial critiques of the Horizon venture by exterior IT specialists had concluded its accounting system, generally known as ICL Pathway, had failed, and that “we are failing to meet good industry practice in taking this project forward”.
The checklist confirmed that out of almost 16 million individuals who ought to have been paid by a profit fee card, solely 30,000 have been really being paid.
It additionally said delays to the programme had value the federal government greater than £200m in financial savings they might in any other case have anticipated to make.
The opening of the inquiry’s part two was delayed after Mr Beer raised a problem about Post Office Ltd’s disclosure to the listening to.
The Post Office, he mentioned, had notified it was “undertaking a significant organisation and review of a large number of boxes of hardcopy documents and files held at various Post Office locations throughout the UK”.
Mr Beer famous that having to start the second part of the inquiry with a dialogue on issues round disclosure was “something of a paradox, if not a matter which is dripping in irony”, when one of many central points within the probe was the Post Office’s “past non-disclosure to the criminal and civil courts”.
Lawyers for the victims of the scandal referred to as for an adjournment.
‘Their lives have been dogged’
“The Post Office has denied sub-postmasters and mistresses any choice in their lives,” mentioned Sam Stein KC, representing greater than 150 of the members.
“They demanded of them investment, demanded of them application of their work, they demanded with them that they comply with a contract that effectively said that they must pay up no matter whose fault it is.
“They then, of these people, prosecuted them for the civil courts and felony courts and plenty of went to jail. Their lives have been dogged by lack of alternative by the Post Office.
“It is a significant matter that we ask you to take into account, Sir, and that their choice is to adjourn.”
Read extra:
Post Office Horizon scandal victims share their tales
Kate Gallafent KC, for the Post Office, mentioned the corporate “emphatically” denies any allegation it has intentionally sought to make late or partial disclosure of related paperwork.
Chair of the inquiry Sir Wyn Williams concluded it ought to proceed as deliberate, as he was “satisfied that I can manage disclosure” and having thought-about the “significant impact” any additional delay would have on the inquiry’s timetable.
Source: information.sky.com”