Post Office changed Horizon data in branches last year, inquiry hears

Post Office executives changed data on the Horizon IT systems used by post office operators as recently as last year, it emerged during the public inquiry into the scandal on Wednesday (16).

In the recent hearings of Tracy Marshall, the retail engagement director at the Post Office, the inquiry was shown a letter from Calum Greenhow, the chief executive of the National Federation of Sub Postmasters (NFSP) and a post office operator for 22 years, written to the Post Office raising the issue in May last year.

Greenhow said in the letter addressed to Marshall, "It has come to my attention that [Post Office] personnel are visiting Postmasters, including audits where Area Managers/Auditors are entering stock values onto Horizon without either consultation or agreement with the postmaster."

"If these facts are correct, then the NFSP would like to know who has authorised this policy within [Post Office] and why it has not been discussed with the NFSP in advance?"

He added that in one case the post office operator “wasn’t even present”.

Marshall denied being part of this investigation but told the inquiry, "I wasn't specifically involved in investigating the issue. The reason I got the email is because, at the time, I was accountable for the relationship with the NFSP but the issue was investigated, yes.

"As a result of the investigation, I believe Post Office held its hands up and said, 'Absolutely, this shouldn't be happening' and, as a result of that, that practice has absolutely stopped now in branches. There was a follow-up call with Mr Greenhow and, I think, Keith Richards from the NFSP as well, a short time after this, to update them on the outcome of our investigation and assure them that that wasn't now happening."

It has emerged in the inquiry that staff at Fujitsu, which runs Horizon and controls access to post office operator transaction data, was able to remotely access branch operators’ systems and make changes. While Post Office executives knew of this ability in the early 2010s, executives publicly denied for years that the capability existed.

In April, the inquiry was shown emails and letters between 2010 and 2011 involving Marshall showing that she knew about the remote access issue, which the organisation at the time had denied was possible.

Marshall, who joined the Post Office in 1998 and took on her current role in 2020, wrote in a 2011 email that Fujitsu could access an individual branch remotely and “move money around”, but “this has never happened yet”. She went on to say that any remote changes would be “spotted and the person making the change would be identified”.

Giving evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday, Marshall said she was just repeating what she had been told by other senior executives because in her role she “certainly wouldn’t have known the ins and outs of the Horizon system or remote access”.

“I would accept here there are mails where I have relayed information to people that concern remote access,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I was involved … in anything involved in remote access. This was an area very much outside my expertise and comfort zone. I wouldn’t have written this without very clear direction from experts on what to say.”

In an undated letter circa 2011-12 to a sub post-office operator who was appealing against allegations of financial wrongdoing, Craig Tuthill, a Post Office appeals manager, cited Marshall's statements to claim that she was “fully satisfied that the Horizon systems and the accounting processes around it are robust and fit for purpose”.

The inquiry is examining the IT scandal, which involved hundreds of post office operators being prosecuted for shortfalls in their accounts based on evidence using the Horizon software which was later shown to be faulty.