In written evidence to the BIS Select Committee Inquiry of 2015, POL gave the following assurance:

‘There is no functionality in Horizon for either a branch, Post Office or Fujitsu (suppliers of the Horizon system) to edit, manipulate or remove transaction data once it has been recorded in a branch’s accounts’ (point 47).

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidenc...

The stance on remote access of that time is recalled by ex POL CEO Paula Vennells in her letter of response to the BEIS Select Committee’s 2020 Inquiry into POL and Horizon:

‘I raised this question repeatedly, both internally and with Fujitsu, and was always given the same answer: that it was not possible for branch records to be altered remotely without the sub-postmaster’s knowledge’.

Please can you supply communications and/or audit reports from Fujitsu in which Fujitsu gives assurance that branch accounts could not be remotely accessed without an SPM’s knowledge and on which POL’s based the assurances it gave to MPs?

(Below, letter from Paula Vennells to BEIS Select Committee of 24th June 2020, p16, point 54):

https://committees.parliament.uk/publica...

Yours faithfully
Eleanor Shaikh