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Information Rights Team
Post Office Limited
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London EC2Y 9AQ
033 3665 3951
Your reference:
Our reference: FOI2021/00484
Ms Eleanor Shaikh
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
24 June 2021
Dear
Ms Shaikh,
Freedom of Information Request – FOI2021/00484
I am writing in response to your request received by Post Office Limited (“
Post
Office”) on 3 June 2021 for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(“
FOIA”), as set out below:
"On 22nd March 2021 during proceedings at the Court of Appeal, a six-page disclosure
note provided by the Post Office was discussed. The document gave details of Post
Office Board Minutes and associated reports from 1999-2000 (see below, p13-19).
https://www.postofficetrial.com/2021/03/...
In this evidence it was apparent that the Post Office Board decided to defer
acceptance of Horizon (and therefore its roll-out) from an original date in August 1999
until at least 24th January 2000.
The reasons for doing so were varied but included a number of high severity incidents
around ‘stability if the system’ and ‘quality of accounting data’.
Please can you disclose all communications between the Post Office and the DTI (July
1999-January 2000) in which these deferrals were made known to the sponsor
department and the reasons Post Office gave for the delays in its acceptance and roll
out of Horizon."
Post Office has carried out reasonable and proportionate searches for the
communications that are responsive to your request. However, POL has been unable
to locate any of the requested communications. In line with the Section 45 FOIA Code
of Practice (see for example paragraph 1.12) and other ICO guidance
1, POL has
concluded that on the balance of probabilities, the requested information is not held.
Post Office notes that the communications that are responsive to your request would
have taken place over twenty years ago. Post Office also notes that communications
between Post Office and the Department for Trade and Industry ("
DTI") might be held
by the DTI's successor body, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial
Strategy ("
BEIS"), albeit POL has not made any enquiries of BEIS in this regard and
makes no assurances that BEIS holds any such communications. If you would still like
to obtain copies of communications, then you may wish to consider submitting a FOIA
request in similar terms to BEIS. You may also wish to make enquiries of the National
Archives, but again, Post Office makes no assurances that the material is held by the
National Archives.
If you have any queries about this response, please contact me. Do remember to
quote the reference number above in any future communications.
1 See e
g https://ico.org.uk/media/1169/determining_whether_information_is_held_foi_eir.pdf
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I hope the information I have provided on this occasion is useful, however if you are
dissatisfied with the handling of this response, you do have a right to request an
internal review. You can do this by writing to the address below stating your reasons
for your internal review request.
Information Rights Manager
Post Office Limited
Information Rights Team
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London
EC2Y 9AQ
xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx
If, having requested an internal review by Post Office, you are still not satisfied with
our response you also have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
https://ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely,
David Sinclair
Information Rights Team
xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx
http://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/secure-corporate/about-us/access-to-information/
@postofficenews
Post Office Limited is committed to protecting your privacy, information about
how we do this can be found on our website at www.postoffice.co.uk/privacy
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