Written Statements
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Post Office Horizon IT System: Independent Review
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I am today announcing the scope of the independent review into the Post Office Horizon IT system and trials which the Prime Minister committed to on 26 February 2020. This followed Post Office Ltd reaching a settlement, in December 2019, of £57.75 million to conclude a long-running case brought against it by a group of postmasters over issues related to Post Office’s Horizon IT system.
The longstanding dispute and subsequent trials relating to the Post Office Horizon IT system have had a hugely negative impact on affected postmasters and their families. These events have deeply affected postmasters’ lives: their livelihoods, their financial situation, their reputations and, for some, also their physical and mental health. In his judgments in the “common issues” and “Horizon issues” trials, Mr Justice Fraser identified significant failings within Post Office Ltd over nearly two decades, particularly in relation to the treatment of postmasters and in its management culture.
Under its new CEO, Nick Read, Post Office Ltd has admitted it got things wrong in relation to the Horizon case and has apologised. It has also started to take steps to reset the relationship with postmasters. These are important moves in the right direction. However, given the very serious impacts this case has had on many individual postmasters, more needs to be done.
Government want to be fully assured that through the review there is a public summary of the failings that occurred at Post Office Ltd, drawing on the judgments from the Horizon case and by listening to those that have been most affected; that lessons have genuinely been learned; and that concrete changes have taken place at Post Office Ltd to ensure that this situation will never be repeated. For these reasons Government have decided to establish an independent review.
The independent review shall:
Understand and acknowledge what went wrong in relation to Horizon, leading to the Group Litigation Order, by drawing on evidence from the Horizon judgments and affected postmasters’ experiences and identify what key lessons must be learned for the future;
Assess whether the Post Office Ltd has learned the lessons from the criticisms made by Mr Justice Fraser in the “Common Issues” and “Horizon Issues" trials and those identified by affected postmasters and has delivered or made good progress on the organisational and cultural changes necessary to ensure a similar case does not happen in the future;
Assess whether the commitments made by Post Office Ltd within the mediation settlement—including the historical shortfall scheme—have been properly delivered;
Assess whether the processes and information provided by Post Office Ltd to postmasters are sufficient to i) enable both parties to meet their contractual obligations; and ii) enable postmasters to run their businesses. This includes assessing whether Post Office Ltd’s related processes such as recording and resolving postmaster queries, dispute handling, suspension and termination are fit for purpose. In addition, determine whether the quality of the service offer for postmasters and their relationship with Post Office Ltd has materially improved since the conclusions by Mr Justice Fraser; and examine the governance and whistleblowing controls now in place at Post Office Ltd and whether they are sufficient to ensure that the failings that led to the Horizon case issues do not happen again.
The review will be led by an independent chair who will be announced in due course alongside final timings and terms of reference for the review.
The review shall set out Post Office Ltd’s actions in response to the findings of Mr Justice Fraser. While avoiding a re-examination of the findings made by Mr Justice Fraser through the lengthy court proceedings, it must use these and the experiences of affected postmasters as the basis for its work. The review should not encroach on the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Court of Appeal. The review should make any recommendations it sees fit, including actions that may, in its view, be appropriate as a result of its findings. The final report will be laid in the Libraries of both Houses upon completion of the review.
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Coronavirus: Local Authority Funding
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
On 22 May the Government announced £300 million additional funding for local authorities to support them to develop and action their plans to reduce the spread of the virus in their area as part of the launch of the wider NHS test and trace service. This funding will enable local authorities to develop and implement tailored local covid-19 outbreak plans through for example funding the recruitment of additional staff where required. Authorities to which grant is to be paid Amount of grant to be paid Barking and Dagenham £1,566,647 Barnet £1,599,177 Barnsley £1,568,553 Bath and North East Somerset £849,159 Bedford £806,281 Bexley £902,348 Birmingham £8,438,988 Blackburn with Darwen £1,366,942 Blackpool £1,693,874 Bolton £1,997,675 Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole £1,808,624 Bracknell Forest £385,454 Bradford £3,870,360 Brent £1,993,129 Brighton and Hove £1,862,524 Bristol, City of £3,032,572 Bromley £1,369,923 Buckinghamshire £1,954,838 Bury £1,080,413 Calderdale £1,233,390 Cambridgeshire £2,493,304 Camden £2,460,643 Central Bedfordshire £1,156,291 Cheshire East £1,533,331 Cheshire West and Chester £1,513,306 City of London £146,484 Cornwall £2,387,297 County Durham £4,498,138 Coventry £2,041,190 Croydon £1,998,175 Cumbria £1,717,862 Darlington £778,834 Derby £1,807,712 Derbyshire £3,859,136 Devon 2,618,508 Doncaster £2,233,745 Dorset £1,287,650 Dudley £1,941,764 Ealing £2,261,924 East Riding of Yorkshire £1,024,000 East Sussex £2,534,832 Enfield £1,582,042 Essex £5,783,212 Gateshead £1,513,527 Gloucestershire £2,221,773 Greenwich £2,159,691 Hackney £3,100,891 Halton £948,538 Hammersmith and Fulham £2,020,099 Hampshire £4,789,993 Haringey £1,862,362 Harrow £1,020,258 Hartlepool £825,809 Havering £1,022,848 Herefordshire, County of £845,091 Hertfordshire £4,506,303 Hillingdon £1,629,656 Hounslow £1,467,891 Isle of Wight £700,230 Isles of Scilly £11,935 Islington £2,430,588 Kensington and Chelsea £1,932,848 Kent £6,311,401 Kingston upon Hull, City of £2,235,503 Kingston upon Thames £940,711 Kirklees £2,381,215 Knowsley £1,595,940 Lambeth £2,919,086 Lancashire £6,367,420 Leeds £4,141,249 Leicester £2,489,071 Leicestershire £2,309,000 Lewisham £2,267,070 Lincolnshire £3,069,554 Liverpool £4,088,731 Luton £1,425,693 Manchester £4,836,535 Medway £1,592,918 Merton £964,982 Middlesbrough £1,566,024 Milton Keynes £1,065,306 Newcastle upon Tyne £2,185,756 Newham £2,843,060 Norfolk £3,717,780 North East Lincolnshire £1,049,417 North Lincolnshire £855,156 North Somerset £868,716 North Tyneside £1,140,250 North Yorkshire £2,022,805 Northamptonshire £3,270,065 Northumberland £1,528,975 Nottingham £3,126,717 Nottinghamshire £3,802,915 Oldham £1,560,230 Oxfordshire £2,858,487 Peterborough £1,017,883 Plymouth £1,402,003 Portsmouth £1,637,748 Reading £901,002 Redbridge £1,279,157 Redcar and Cleveland £1,076,223 Richmond upon Thames £858,104 Rochdale £1,591,757 Rotherham £1,518,012 Rutland £120,148 Salford £1,975,758 Sandwell £2,276,836 Sefton £1,995,065 Sheffield £3,101,989 Shropshire £1,126,797 Slough £689,507 Solihull £1,040,717 Somerset £1,925,972 South Gloucestershire £863,029 South Tyneside £1,250,300 Southampton £1,571,231 Southend-on-Sea £887,492 Southwark £2,521,368 St. Helens £1,328,091 Staffordshire £3,634,365 Stockport £1,473,704 Stockton-on-Tees £1,310,997 Stoke-on-Trent £2,084,370 Suffolk £2,789,363 Sunderland £2,219,966 Surrey £3,477,690 Sutton £920,329 Swindon £930,733 Tameside £1,419,817 Telford and Wrekin £1,162,281 Thurrock £1,050,883 Torbay £886,457 Tower Hamlets £3,220,464 Trafford £1,156,759 Wakefield £2,247,805 Walsall £1,650,559 Waltham Forest £1,478,904 Wandsworth £2,541,671 Warrington £1,136,884 Warwickshire £2,137,781 West Berkshire £540,345 West Sussex £3,178,715 Westminster £2,890,797 Wigan £2,392,101 Wiltshire £1,586,902 Windsor and Maidenhead £435,650 Wirral £2,733,018 Wokingham £499,857 Wolverhampton £1,920,236 Worcestershire £2,752,192 York £733,896 Total £300,000,000
Today we are updating the House on the detailed allocation of these monies which has been made on the basis of the 2020-21 public health grant allocations. This allocation formula has been chosen as that which best reflects the public health needs in local authorities.
This funding is for local authorities in England only. This means an additional £57 million will be provided by HMT via the Barnett formula for the devolved Administrations, £29 million for the Scottish Government, £18 million for the Welsh Government, and £10 million for the Northern Ireland Executive.
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