A new phrase?

[Cozzer]

Those old enough to remember the decision to axe hundreds of miles of rail routes and stations will possibly still use the phrase "to do a beeching" when weeding/thinning out certain things.
I wonder if "doing a vennells" will become a household phrase in the future?

 

[dizjasta]

Those old enough to remember the decision to axe hundreds of miles of rail routes and stations will possibly still use the phrase "to do a beeching" when weeding/thinning out certain things.
I wonder if "doing a vennells" will become a household phrase in the future?

I hope it does but if a substitute is needed perhaps "psychotic liar" should apply.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Who is Vennell?

 

[Noel]

Paula.
Little heard of part-time apprentice vicar……

 

[Yojevol]

Who is Vennell?

There's more than one - Vennells.

Who? Me? I was only following orders (from my staff)
I always find I get the best advice from those at the coal face. They know what they're doing.

Paula

 

[Cozzer]

Who is Vennell?

Have you been hacked by Mr.Little?

 

[paulrbarnard]

Ah post office. I’ve not been following that.

 

[Cozzer]

Ah post office. I’ve not been following that.

Don't blame you.
First class, it ain't....

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Paula.
Little heard of part-time apprentice vicar……

Apprentice bishop?

 

[skeetstar]

I think at one time she had been identified as a future Bishop of London. That would have meant her becoming a full time cleric.

 

[Phill05]

Cry she might, hang her head in shame she can't her husband advised her not to.

 

[selectortone]

Three days of well-rehearsed evasion, obfuscation and shifting the blame. Not a very good advert for Christianity.

 

[Ozi]

Three days of well-rehearsed evasion, obfuscation and shifting the blame. Not a very good advert for Christianity.

The problem with Christians is that they are human - just like the rest of us - so often for politicians, leaders etc. it's not the mistake that does the damage but the attempt to cover it up at all / any cost to anyone except themselves. A lesson we all need to learn. The question is would we have the sense to vote for or promote a person who admitted their mistakes when they first became apparent. If not then the scum will always rise to the top.

 

[spanner48]

Paula.
Little heard of part-time apprentice vicar……

A bit more than that. In 2017, AFTER the Post Office scandal had become public knowledge, she was one of three candidates short-listed to be the next Bishop of London [3rd most senior in the C of E, after the Archbishops of Canterbury & York]. She wasn't picked; but Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was lobbying hard on her behalf.

Makes you think . . . . .

Luke 10:31 Now a man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by robbers and left in the road, half-dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side..

 

[niall Y]

To be fair, she was not the one who originated the problem or who hid it under the carpet until it reached the size it did. But, she was certainly the one left holding the parcel when the "music stopped",

She should, however, be judged on her actions, after she became aware of the situation. Continuing to ignore the problem has caused real harm to many people.

I would like to think that had I found myself in a similar position, I would have done the ""right thing" irrespective of the consequences. But then I am not a "team player", so would never have been offered such a role in the first place.

We do not know, how much the government knew, or how much they were influencing decisions. She may well have been lined up as the "patsy" when she was first appointed, and found herself caught between a "rock and a hard place".

Admitting the problem. would certainly have been the "Christian" thing to do, But, compensation for the victims is likely to be something the government will have to pay for. And, they may well have been hoping to avoid this liability at all cost.

 

[spanner48]

There is more to this than meets the eye.

The question is "WHY was the Horizon system introduced in the first place?"

Turns out that the principal motive was to track, reduce and eliminate Benefit Fraud - which the then government thought was costing billions. Up till then all the Sub-Post Office accounting had been done on paper, with a weekly account reconciliation.

There are over 100 services that can be accessed via the Post Office; but two thirds of the money involved concerns State Benefits. The paper system included [they thought] too many opportunities for fraud. These divided into two:

• Money claimed and paid out to beneficiaries who were not entitled to it

• Money claimed by Sub-Postmasters & Mistresses on behalf of claimaints, but not paid out to them, and pocketed instead

Horizon is basically a large and very complex EFTPOS {Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale] system, that covers all the money services a Sub-Post Office can carry out. So it keeps a computer record of everything, and flags up either inconsistencies or suspicious patterns.

So when, after 1999, it started flagging up "inconsistencies" or "suspicious patterns" involving Sub-Post Offices, the Post Office hierarchy thought it was doing the job they intended it to do. And congratulated themselves on its effectiveness.

And it probably did catch some Sub-Post Office staff fraud. But they hadn't realised that there was a "Back door" written in by ICL [the 'Government codesmiths'; later renamed Fujitsu] giving ICL and Head Office staff the opportunity to view and to modify the data recorded.

• Why they included this is not clear . . . . .

• Why accounts were "modified" is not clear . . . .

• Where the money – that [falsely] accused Sub-Postmasters & Mistresses were forced to "re-imburse" the Post Office – went is not clear . . . .

But it does explain why the Post Office were so defensive about their new system, and so unwilling to accept that it was not, as they kept claiming, "completely robust".

None so blind, as those who will not see

 

[Sachakins]

Horizon system was the pinnacle of a GIGO computer system.
GIGO = Garbage in Garbage Out.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I don't doubt that a computerised system to manage the Post Office made good sense. 25 years on we would not contemplate so large an organisation supported only by manual systems.

That the system was flawed and the data produced misused is a management failing.

The focus on reducing fraud is unsurprising. The PO needed to evaluate the financial savings to justify the investment. Although overly simplistic, this type of appraisal would superficially satisfy public sector scrutiny with the illusion that the investment was covered by expected savings.

 

[spanner48]

I don't doubt that a computerised system to manage the Post Office made good sense. 25 years on we would not contemplate so large an organisation supported only by manual systems.

That the system was flawed and the data produced misused is a management failing.

The focus on reducing fraud is unsurprising. The PO needed to evaluate the financial savings to justify the investment. Although overly simplistic, this type of appraisal would superficially satisfy public sector scrutiny with the illusion that the investment was covered by expected savings.

Indeed. It is remarkable that - 30 years after the introduction of IT [I was busy coding back in 1965] - they should still have been using a manual paper system

 

[Spectric]

All these issues such as the post office and contaminated blood fiasco's really highlight the incompetance and stupidity of peoples ability to organise, manage and make decisions. Having such a problem will happen from time to time but you deal with it, acknowledge there is a problem and put it on the table for discussion with the objective to resolve because hiding or denying problems does not make then go away. The part that I find strange is that your IT supplier who produced the horizon system had access to the working version, this could be an issue with the program itself but the post office should have had third party independant advice regarding the new proposed system and requested multi level access so only the post office could access the live data and Fugitsu only the working layers for maintenance whilst they run a dummy network internally for beta testing and upgrades before release.

As the person at the top, vennals she just did not bother to even ask the right questions or think there might be some issue because in her eyes the post office could do no wrong and the post office workers were guilty by default.