The public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon computer system scandal has heard that government officials in 2014 had considered sacking the organisation’s chief executive after developing serious doubts about her suitability.
Paula Vennells was chief executive of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019, a period during which prosecutions of subpostmasters continued despite forensic accounting firm Second Sight investigating Fujitsu’s Horizon system. Vennells in 2015 played a key role in terminating Second Sight’s contract before it could fully reveal its findings.
Overall, 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted over financial discrepancies that arose from using the Horizon system.
The inquiry heard yesterday that officials considered sacking her in 2014, five years before she resigned, because of doubts over her leadership.
“Advice from the recent annual review suggested that the POL [Post Office Ltd] team give careful consideration to the continued suitability of Paula Vennells as CEO,” read one document, dated February 2014, which appeared to be from the Post Office’s risk and assurance committee and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (the sole shareholder in the state-owned company).
Under the heading “Why is Paula’s position under review?”, it was stated that “she has been unable to work with personalities that provide robust challenge to her”.
The document said: “There is a general consensus that Paula is no longer the right person to lead POL but justification is anecdotal.” But it also stated that it would be “more difficult” to remove Vennells because of the impending general election, which took place in 2015. “Ministers would be conscious of the political implications,” it said.
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Alice Perkins was the chair of the Post Office at this time. She was asked by lead counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC if Vennells preferred having “yes-men and yes-women” around her. Perkins said this was not the case, but added, that along with other board members, she began to have reservations about Vennells’ leadership in 2014.
Perkins said she was not aware of the discussions within government at the time.
In 2017, 555 subpostmasters led by Alan Bates brought a group action against the Post Office in the High Court. In March 2019, the judge ruled that the Post Office’s contracts with the subpostmasters were unfair and that Horizon “contained bugs, errors and defects”.
Vennells resigned from the Post Office in February 2019 and was subsequently awarded a CBE “for services to the Post Office and to charity”. She handed the CBE back earlier this year – before being formally stripped of it – in the wake of media attention to the ITV dramatisation of the scandal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
The inquiry showed Perkins an email that Vennells sent her in 2014 in which the then-chief executive wrote she was “more bored than outraged” about an item on the BBC One Show programme on the Post Office scandal. Perkins said: “Looking at this now, obviously it looks absolutely dreadful.”
She told the inquiry: “The board was not bored of this issue and I have said on a number of occasions over the last two days that I think there were instances where the board should have acted differently.”
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Vennells herself gave evidence to the inquiry last month. She defended herself on the basis that she had been let down by IT and legal specialists at the Post Office.
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