HIGNFY - Post Office IT Scandal

Подписаться 4,4 тыс.

Просмотров 373 тыс.

50% 1

Season 61 Episode 4
Links to related publications & programmes listed below are here 👇🏻
• Post Office Horizon IT...
The Guardian - Fixing Horizon bugs would have been too costly... 18 Jan 2024
BBC Sounds - The Great Post Office Trial
ITVX - Mr Bates v The Post Office
Private Eye - Justice Lost In The Post, (pdf)
How the Post Office wrecked the lives of its own workers
By Richard Brooks & Nick Wallis
'CONCEIVED in 1996 as one of the first private finance initiative (PFI) contracts, between the Post Office and the Benefits Agency on the one hand and computer company ICL on the other, the Horizon IT system had an unpromising start. It had been set up to create a swipe card system for payment of pensions and benefits from Post Office branch counters. But, as with most mega-IT projects of the time, it soon fell victim to over-ambition, management consultancy snake oil and the inability of a PFI contract to deliver a complex public service.'
House of Commons Statement, 18 September 2023
by Business & Trade Minister Kevin Hollinrake on the compensation scheme for the victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal
House of Lords Statement, 19 September 2023
Post Office Compensation Scheme
by Business & Trade Minister the Earl of Minto on the Post Office Horizon IT scandal compensation scheme
BBC Panorama - The Post Office Scandal
'The Post Office is responsible for the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history. For nearly two decades, the scandal saw hundreds of men and women who ran post offices in towns and villages across the country accused of losing or stealing money, when in reality, a computer system could have been to blame. This Panorama special tells the story of those whose lives were utterly devastated, reveals the damning evidence that was kept from them and investigates how and why the Post Office, a multinational tech company and the government covered up the truth for so long.'

Опубликовано:

4 окт 2024

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист

Посмотреть позже

Комментарии : 479

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Season 61 Episode 4 Links to related publications & programmes listed below are here 👇🏻 ru-vid.com/group/PLiq6u9HOFYgdLgzXS6ZAuJvSVj8gcxLm5&feature=shared BBC Sounds - The Great Post Office Trial ITVX - Mr Bates v The Post Office Private Eye - Justice Lost In The Post, (pdf) How the Post Office wrecked the lives of its own workers By Richard Brooks & Nick Wallis 'CONCEIVED in 1996 as one of the first private finance initiative (PFI) contracts, between the Post Office and the Benefits Agency on the one hand and computer company ICL on the other, the Horizon IT system had an unpromising start. It had been set up to create a swipe card system for payment of pensions and benefits from Post Office branch counters. But, as with most mega-IT projects of the time, it soon fell victim to over-ambition, management consultancy snake oil and the inability of a PFI contract to deliver a complex public service.' House of Commons Statement, 18 September 2023 by Business & Trade Minister Kevin Hollinrake on the compensation scheme for the victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal House of Lords Statement, 19 September 2023 Post Office Compensation Scheme by Business & Trade Minister the Earl of Minto on the Post Office Horizon IT scandal compensation scheme BBC Panorama - The Post Office Scandal 'The Post Office is responsible for the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history. For nearly two decades, the scandal saw hundreds of men and women who ran post offices in towns and villages across the country accused of losing or stealing money, when in reality, a computer system could have been to blame. This Panorama special tells the story of those whose lives were utterly devastated, reveals the damning evidence that was kept from them and investigates how and why the Post Office, a multinational tech company and the government covered up the truth for so long.'

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

The Guardian - Fixing Horizon bugs would have been too costly... 18 Jan 2024 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/17/post-office-inquiry-fixing-horizon-bugs-fujitsu-developer-gerald-barnes Flaws known since 1998.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Private Eye has been reporting on the Post Office scandal for over a decade: Richard Brooks joins the team to discuss how we got here and where things go next. Private Eye Podcast: Page 94 www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Failure to act on claims that sub-postmasters were being wrongly accused of theft and false accounting by the Post Office. Over the nearly two-decade scandal that has ruined hundreds of lives members of all three main political parties could have done more to address claims. 17 Ministers have been responsible for the Postal Service brief since the flawed Horizon system was rolled out to Post Offices in 2000. Following a landmark 2019 High Court case, the Post Office’s leadership was forced to concede there were systemic issues with the Horizon system. Several months later the then PM Boris Johnson committed to an independent public inquiry into what has become one of Britain’s biggest miscarriages of justice. www.ft.com/content/4b04b827-e8b2-4bbf-bd18-4a89bcc5a9b0

@dw-yl3ln 8 месяцев назад

Respect for Ian to give credit where it’s due, not just Private Eye. Man’s a class act.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Yep, he certainly is, as are Richard Brooks & the rest of the Private Eye team 🏆

@larsfillmore4765 8 месяцев назад

Agreed

@SUBCITIZEN666 8 месяцев назад

He sure does hold peoples feet to the fire quite often. Good on him 👍👍

@phillipjohno 8 месяцев назад

He's a journalist that every other 'journalist' should aim to be like

@jca111 8 месяцев назад

Give credit to Computer Weekly as well... They were the first to report it.

@Matthew-ut6ed 8 месяцев назад

Hislop and Private Eye deserve a lot of credit for reporting on this issue for the last twenty years or so. As a reader for over 40 years I've seen this many times: Private Eye picks up on a story that the rest of the media takes years to acknowledge. You may not like Hislop's manner personally, or appreciate Private Eye's style of humour, but their investigative journalism is consistently BANG ON.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Indeed, Private Eye deserves a LOT of credit & for those, like myself, that rather enjoy Hislop's manner & Private Eye's style of humour/exemplary journalism they've also got a pretty good podcast - Page 94 👇🏻 www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast

@gamerknown 8 месяцев назад

He's been repeatedly sued and injunctions taken out against him by some of the worst people conceivable

@raypang1981 8 месяцев назад

It was refreshing to see that Ian Hislop acknowledge that Computer Weekly first reported on it, rather than Private Eye taking all the credit.

@As-qz5lr 8 месяцев назад

Very silent on child r*pe, grooming and trafficing scandal that is allowed to take place up and down the country, Probably not a big deal to him.

@gaskellr44 8 месяцев назад

Whatever ppl say about him, he probably is one of the most honourable ppl in the public eye.@@raypang1981

@BadgerOff32 8 месяцев назад

You know it's pretty serious when even Paul Merton isn't trying to come up with a joke from it. Ian Hislop is a bloody national treasure for the journalism he does with Private Eye.

@alisonkent3119 8 месяцев назад

What makes me sick is that the people were told that they were the only ones. The people affected not only trusted the post office, but the fact they were telling the truth. Telling the truth wasnt enough. If the truth isnt enough where are we as a society?

@jmo8934 8 месяцев назад

It wouldn’t be the first time that the British government had locked people up to save face whilst knowing that they were completely innocent. Look at the Guildford four and Birmingham six for staters.

@m12652 8 месяцев назад

The thing that makes me sick is the government did nothing until a very clever program aired. It's been in the news on and off since the beginning, private eye and numerous others have been banging on about it for years and yet nothing... what frightens me is the general public keep voting despite it being blatantly obvious the governments has no more respect for their privacy, well being or liberty than a monarchy from 200 years ago... and even worse, when they get caught it's not a crime...

@timholder6825 8 месяцев назад

It was ever so when dealing with political or corporate corruption.

@philip771 8 месяцев назад

How ironic, and sad, that the people catching the supposed "dishonest" people weren't telling the truth themselves!! What does the Bible say - "how can you offer to remove a speck from your brother's eye when you have a log in your own?"!

@m12652 8 месяцев назад

@@philip771 The bible is one of the tools that allowed our societies to evolve in such a sick corrupt way… let’s not forget what the head of the post offices other job was.

@chloedance9316 8 месяцев назад

The people in power who knew this was happening, and yet did nothing, should probably be imprisoned. Charge them with perjury and perverting the course of justice.

@gavinminion8515 8 месяцев назад

Perjury charges might well be coming. Though the ability of highly paid, well lawyered company executives to evade responsibility is well known and hard to overcome. "The poor had no lawyers" still applies now...

@johndublyoo2553 8 месяцев назад

That's every PM from Blair to Sunak, they knew alright and did nothing until it became a matter of public knowledge when the ITV programme was aired.🤬

@gavinminion8515 8 месяцев назад

@@johndublyoo2553 Yes, I think you are right about the PMs, they all had an opportunity to intervene. It's probably true for many MPs as well, though there are exceptions - in this case James Arbuthnot - who campaigned for the postmasters before it was 'popular' to do so. I would not normally speak so highly of a Conservative politician, but even a stopped clock can sometimes tell the right time...

@John64125 8 месяцев назад

I’m sure there are a number of nervous people who were tied up in this. The problem will be proving that the system issues were known about by those in power. As Kirsty says any decent auditor would recognise that the patterns were illogical. You don’t normally have that many exceptions. The post office board must have known something was up but did nothing about it, that’s guilt but probably not a crime. It’ll be difficult to hook these people because if you prove one is guilty the dominoes start falling.

@johndublyoo2553 8 месяцев назад

@@John64125 The fact that a former Fujitsu electronic engineer said just recently that the company knew there were glitches in the Horizon system and they still allowed the government at the time (Labour) to roll it out for use and the government knew it was faulty.

@Marvhead 8 месяцев назад

There are people who work at Fujitsu and the Post Office who need to go to prison for this. It's disgusting to think of so many wrongly accused people losing their lives, livelihoods, liberty and reputations through the complete incompetence of others.

@fuwingpang5445 8 месяцев назад

As someone had mentioned above, these were not cause by incompetence, but greed

@FallenPhoenix86 8 месяцев назад

Criminal conspiracy, not incompetence.

@euan1234 8 месяцев назад

there was even a case in Edinburgh where the accused was so worried about the possible criminal investigations, that she took her life. It is so tragic

@zacmumblethunder7466 8 месяцев назад

@@euan1234 Possibly difficult to invoke, but Corporate Manslaughter charges seem worth pursuing.

@reggiedixon2 8 месяцев назад

It is a total mystery why those in the Post Office and Fujitsu who knew and covered it up are not facing prison sentences..... Oh wait, this is Britain and only the little people face consequences - whether they did anything illegal or not.

@aamackie 8 месяцев назад

There's been discussion of possible perjury charges for some of them.

@reggiedixon2 8 месяцев назад

@@aamackie It shouldn't be a technicality, it should be about fraud, lying, false accounting and maliciously getting other people imprisoned.

@gaskellr44 8 месяцев назад

They may do as these things take time.

@aamackie 8 месяцев назад

@@reggiedixon2 It's more than a technicality, according to Wikipedia it can have a sentence up to 7 years in the UK.

@LoscoeLad 8 месяцев назад

a once great country that has been run into the ground by those same despciable people that call themselves elites

@viviano07-j9o 8 месяцев назад

My dad is a very respected Postmaster of 34 years and lost £10,000 due to the system years and years ago. He had to pay it back. He didn't tell ANYONE in our family, and I only found out last week. I sat on the sofa gobsmacked when he told me. I had absolutely no idea he kept it to himself out of fear and humiliation. I don't know if he can appeal and get this money back because he doesn't have any proof or receipts anymore because it was such a long time ago.

@mauritsvw 8 месяцев назад

Surely the post office will have records of what happened, and now should be good time to approach them, as they are seemingly trying to do right by their former mistreated employees.

@juliaperry2812 8 месяцев назад

get in touch with Ian Hislop, your MP Head of state, etc PM not much use he wouldn.t be bothered

@marisaJ1 8 месяцев назад

Fujitsu & the PO were totally gaslighting those people. The audacity & sheer immorality to convict and imprison those people, knowing full well they were innocent is insane. Those responsible should be charged criminally.

@deborahscott6005 8 месяцев назад

It just is mind blowing that this was allowed to happen. People in 'top' jobs get paid loads of money and do not take any responsibility. They are found out to make huge mistakes then get paid millions to leave. They should be sacked with no remuneration and the people responsible for this scandal should be jailed for a long time.

@MrDiddyDee 8 месяцев назад

CEO of the PO, Paula Vennells, during her time at the company is reported to have received almost £3 million in bonuses, on top of her £5 million total income. She walked straight into a senior job in the NHS, she was awarded her CBE which was backed by Theresa May, and also joined a committee advising the Cabinet Office on ethics from a Christian perspective. It is obscene that she has been rewarded whilst so many honest hard working people have suffered from her decisions.

@josefschiltz2192 8 месяцев назад

All this seems to clearly show that the most important thing for these top jobs people is to be paid lots of money.

@ryuhayabaker 8 месяцев назад

The post office was always an institution that was just desperate to sack people or mistreat them for the slightest inconvenience. They have always been very distrusting of their own staff, and by the time my father finally got out after 30 years service in the mid 2000s - he said they were trying to kill people in the job. Some of the stories I've been told by him, are genuinely shocking. However, the actions of the PO in the horizon scandal, are not surprising at all. An appalling institution. Plus I'm sure my local postie is a nonce.

@josefschiltz2192 8 месяцев назад

@@ryuhayabaker A friend of mine in Bristol has always had problems with the postal 'service' - which aggravates our family as we spent a great deal of the last century being very diligent with our work!! However, my friend's experience was very different from diligence. His brother tried for the job of a post round in the early Eighties and was actually told that he seemed "too intelligent for the job!" There have been packages sent by him that were ripped open or damaged and he actually saw registered parcels being kicked like a football. Another postman, he recalls, was trying to see how much drool he could leave on the pavement!! It would seem that, at least in some places, standards were practically non-existent. In this case, you get what you're willing to hire! Tracing back the decades however, in 1944, when my mother was 21, she was in the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a teleprinter operator in Bristol and my grandmother sent her a birthday cake for her and to share out with her colleagues. Gran took out a slice for herself, sending the rest, and it arrived in perfect condition in Bristol via the ordinary post. Some difference!!

@zacmumblethunder7466 8 месяцев назад

@MrDiddyDee She's been on a committee for Christian ethics? FFS, Was Torquemada not available?

@davew4998 8 месяцев назад

I worked in IT for over 40 years, and it amazes me when non IT people such as senior managers claim there are no bugs in a system. Certainly you can say that a system processes millions of transactions without problem, but that never precludes the possibility of the system deleting, creating or corrupting others. Most IT professionals, well all really, will tell you that intermittent bugs are the hardest to identify, just like with a car. That means you just have to try harder to find them not give up and blame the users. The arrogance of the Post Office management nakes my blood boil.

@jackdeniston59 8 месяцев назад

They just needed to turn it off and turn it on again....Utter C**nts

@tma2001 8 месяцев назад

aye even if the error rate is a tiny % it soon builds up when there are millions of transactions. It is enough to know from the error logs when there is a fault independent of how difficult it is to reproduce or fix. Its one thing for the PO to treat Horizon as a black box (there own IT managers could not get access to the internal architecture documentation during its commissioning phase!) quite another for Fujitsu to watch on in silence as lives were ruined on the basis of their assurances that Horizon was robust. I want to see former board members of both organizations stripped of all they own (bonuses, pensions, homes and contents as part of the compensation bill) and kicked on to the street or prison. I won't be holding my breath however.

@davew4998 8 месяцев назад

@@tma2001 Yes, if error logs are produced. One would have thought that duplicate or bogus records would show up in an audit somewhere, but it's hard to say without knowing how the system works. Nothing really surprises me with computer systems though. I once worked on a system where it fell over if the user entered 11 transactions on a screen. Less or more than 11 was fine. We just didn't test for 11 on its own. I can't remember why it went wrong now as it was a long time ago. And yes, hopefully the inquiry will get to the bottom of who knew there was a substantial bug in the system but chose to cover it up, and I hope they are severely punnished for perverting the course of justice.

@davew4998 8 месяцев назад

@@tma2001 A further thought. I read somewhere that the system recorded user keystrokes. If that was the case I would have thought that they could be reconciled with the transaction records produced by the system. If it's as easy as that to clear someones name then any sentences handed out should be doubled.

@JaneAustenAteMyCat 8 месяцев назад

@@davew4998 Hear, hear!

@monacophotographyevents2384 8 месяцев назад

What also gets me is the Hypocrisy of the woman, she was some sort of priest, giving holier than thou sermons, whilst, at the same time condoning the victimisation of the Postmasters. The CBE was important to her, so giving it back is a start, but it's a triviality. She should be hit in the pocket, and also prosecuted.

@realcapitalist1462 8 месяцев назад

Don't be too surprised. The way the CoE treats some of it's own is incredible. Google Martyn Percy!

@stuartgallacher9949 8 месяцев назад

Unfortunately the Post Office politicians and Fujitsu will all cover for each other and no one will be made to answer for it

@peterharrington8709 8 месяцев назад

More likely they will scapegoat someone... but it'll be light touch for sure.

@dougaltolan3017 8 месяцев назад

Fujitsu has clearly stated that they were (partly) at fault. No proviso, no wriggling off the hook, plain, straight wrong.

@BittermanAndy 8 месяцев назад

@@dougaltolan3017That's OK then.

@rb1062 8 месяцев назад

We need to start seeing those responsible in prison and paying back their bonuses.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

We most certainly do & any associated pensions

@bodricthered 8 месяцев назад

Don't hold your breath

@richardsawyer5428 8 месяцев назад

This country is one hell of a fustercluck. Thank goodness for investigative journalists such as those at Computer Weekly, Private Eye, etc.

@TrondBørgeKrokli 8 месяцев назад

Thank you for the rewrite of CF to FC. I enjoyed that. 😄

@johntomasini3916 8 месяцев назад

Ian and his Private Eye team are the ultimate Fact Checkers, bravo.

@RosieHarp 8 месяцев назад

It's very sad that it takes a drama series to get anything done about this nefarious travesty. Mr Hislop is one of the few that brought it up periodically

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Indeed but it's as much about timing as it is about easily absorbed exposure. As you're probably aware, we're in a General Election year - Amazing how animated this makes the political arena Hislop is, without doubt, a, if not THE, major player, with his team at Private Eye, in investigating & bringing injustices to the attention of the general public

@neilcrawford8303 8 месяцев назад

Plus there have been three BBC Panorama programmes, one dating from 2015 about the Post Office and Fujitsu's Horizon system. Funny how Computer Weekly, Private Eye, programmes like Panorama etc thought it all stank and something was drastically wrong. Yet those at PO HQ just ploughed on with the prosecutions. The fact, as Paul Patterson of Fujitsu said at the parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday, that they had advised the PO of problems with the system in the early 2000s. The PO is still 90% at fault, they are the ones who actually carried out the prosecutions, and continued to do so, even in the knowledge that Horizon wasn't sound.

@cjmillsnun 8 месяцев назад

@@neilcrawford8303 add 10% to that. They did the prosecutions with minimal investigation (basically they took what Horizon said as gospel), whilst they knew it was faulty. The PO are 100% to blame on this.

@VLind-uk6mb 8 месяцев назад

@@neilcrawford8303 No: it was "robust."

@zacmumblethunder7466 8 месяцев назад

@@neilcrawford8303BBC Radio 4 did a documentary series in about 18-20 parts on this as well.

@Szaam 8 месяцев назад

Good on Paul for commending Private Eye, good on Ian for his humility and commending other journalists.

@jockmchaggis6797 8 месяцев назад

Those responsible for this deserve, at a minimum, 25 years in prison each with the forfeiture of ALL financial assets, pensions and golden parachutes included

@Fifury161 8 месяцев назад

The forfeiture of all financial assets is actually written in to their contracts!

@paulwood5803 8 месяцев назад

How on earth did the Post Office completely ignore the staggering numbers of apparent fraudulent post masters that were involved? Especially as there is supposed to be a fairly rigorous vetting procedure during recruitment. Disgusting doesn't even begin to get close as a description of what this is.

@milo2324 8 месяцев назад

they were protecting their reputation of course.

@fasthracing 8 месяцев назад

They trusted the IT to be perfect

@Richard-yd1ws 8 месяцев назад

Someone had knowledge of the number of prosecutions They would have needed it for the auditors

@wmorris189 8 месяцев назад

Because the higher ups were making a lot of money out of it. Stop seeing this all as incompetence.

@avtar1699 8 месяцев назад

Corruption plain and simple. It's not just the post office, brown envelopes are passed around all the time.

@splintercast8092 8 месяцев назад

According to the ITV drama it wasn't just bugs though - subpostmasters' accounts were being willfully changed by Fujitsu to show a shortfall then when postmasters were forced to pay this money back it just quietly got added to the Post Office's profits. If this was true then it was a case of fraud and senior management from Fujitsu and The Post Office who were in on this need to go to jail if there is any justice left in this country.

@Beatlefan67 8 месяцев назад

...which there isn't. An old pal of mine has been jailed for 12 years for something he didn't do.

@dougaltolan3017 8 месяцев назад

That money wasn't *added* to profits. Profit is what is on the books, and that would be the fake amounts from the software: real take minus supposed theft plus shortfall recovery. What will be being looked at is where did the extra money (shortfall payback) go... I'll lay good money it went into senior management pockets.

@splintercast8092 8 месяцев назад

@@dougaltolan3017 You're absolutely correct. Obviously it would have had to remain 'under the table' otherwise it would be too transparent.

@Murray-wk3hz 8 месяцев назад

This is probably not the worst miscarriage of justice. The worst ones are probably being covered up. There is rot everywhere.

@gavinminion8515 8 месяцев назад

Lack of funds; increasing number of crimes; increasing complexity of cases; more and more political pressure; more aware and resourceful criminals; Overworked and underpaid - the criminal justice system is not in a good shape right now. And I'm afraid both victims and accused persons are suffering as a result.

@taffwob 8 месяцев назад

There an even bigger problem of corruption with regard to the Post Office that hasn't seen the light of day yet. I can't give details as I don't have them but know that the person who does know is genuine and they're not giving out details. They're struggling with the implication of being a whistle blower on it and I hope they do as it will come out in the wash eventually but by then it will be too late. Maybe it already is and the damage has been done. They're connected to pensions so i dread to think what may be happening.

@DK-dq8bu 8 месяцев назад

Now is the turn of the Post Office and Fujitsu executives to spend time in Jail.

@fastacesus8499 8 месяцев назад

Simple really, when you outsource you IT you are giving away millions of pounds to a company that cares about 1 thing and that is profit. They do the minimum for the maximum return. As a in house IT developer I see this time and again with the outsource teams. Often we have to step in to resolve stuff for them.

@johnfoster7428 8 месяцев назад

You'd think the post office prosecutions department would twig there was a computer problem with the sheer number of cases they were dealing with.

@andybrice2711 8 месяцев назад

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

@woodyspooner 8 месяцев назад

The people who tested and tested the Fujitsu I.T. system knew it was not fit for purpose and told the post office this I.T. system was not fit for purpose, but the post office went ahead and installed the Fujitsu I.T. in all post office branches, and when it all went wrong, the Post Office managers were wrongfully prosecuted their reputataions destroyed lives in tatters. Also, it must not be forgotten. Some of the wrongfully accused committed suicide. How do the people who filed the prosecutions against the innocent post office managers sleep at night, knowing what they had done.

@JoelJoel321 8 месяцев назад

They. Knew.

@dougaltolan3017 8 месяцев назад

@@woodyspoonerthey are not "nice" people, they slept very well.. Untill the documentary...

@gohumberto 8 месяцев назад

It's like something out of Soviet Russia. The General public, the Tax payer get's shafted up both ends in this scandal. (1) Innocent Members of the public are falsely convicted and have their money and business stolen from them. (2) The Post Office use that money to pay Execs bonuses. (3) The Post Office write off millions in compensation money against Tax, and generate false losses to evade Tax. (4) The Post Office spend £150,000,000 in legal fees fighting innocent people's compensation claims (approx £190,000 for each of the 800 victims). (5) Finally we know that compensation will be over a Billion quid. Guess who picks up the bill? That's right .... the Tax Payer. Meanwhile the Senior Execs were paid millions in bonus for ..... wait for it .... this will make you laugh... "Services to the Post Office".

@Beatlefan67 8 месяцев назад

'I could spit buckets of blood' as my dear old dad would've said. Stringing up is too good for these people.

@Dask2437 8 месяцев назад

I contracted for Fujitsu for 2 years from 2008 at a media organisation and the internal incompetence was as clear as day. The worst of the permanent employees would move around the organisation being sacked from one project and moving onto the next. Nobody could believe that time after time they were being awarded government contracts, but it was all because their initial bids were the lowest and government procurement processes mandated that they be selected. Of course once awarded, the costs would spiral.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Failing upwards has become a feature of many institutions & industries. Don't know when it became a thing. Maybe it's always been the way but perhaps it's more glaringly obvious now

@belindathorne9784 8 месяцев назад

The law on public procurement essentially outlaws discrimination based on previous failures. It's absurd. Often contracts are given out with the full knowledge that they will never be fulfilled.

@paulphillips675 8 месяцев назад

I watched the Horizon enquiry for a long period today when they were interviewing a Fujitsu employee. A large number of the statements, emails, etc., referred to ARQ logs and the fact that the transaction / audit reports being produced by the Horizon version [HNG-x?] being discussed (in use around 2010 when the witness was employed by Fujitsu in that role) was not automatically deleting duplicate transactions as had been the case with the previous version. This tells me that duplicate SPM transactions were being logged and not only were they known about but Fujitsu had gone to the trouble of writing a routine into reporting software that automatically deleted these duplicates from reports to ensure they were not available to be used to discredit the data used in court proceedings. This MUST be a criminal offence, e.g. perverting the course of justice, and as it contributed to some suicides must be CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER 🤬

@stream_gene 8 месяцев назад

Trust Ian to lay it out simply and honestly.

@catastrophic009 8 месяцев назад

And the frustrating thing for some of the families is that their loved ones have died because of this ! The Government & Fujitsu have to take full responsibility & the compensation has to be substantial & it should surmount to millions !......& heads must roll all the way to prison for some !!

@bodricthered 8 месяцев назад

You've got to love that when some tries to praise private eye hislop doesn't blink before correcting who reported it first and who fought for this legally, boy's class.

@andydudley1775 8 месяцев назад

when a call center says your the only one.who was runing the call center .looks premed crime and thought out too.

@VLind-uk6mb 8 месяцев назад

That's right. Somebody put it in the script.

@CineRanter 8 месяцев назад

It is frustrating that it took a TV series for attention to be bought back to this scandal and to re-instate it intot he discourse.

@george150799 8 месяцев назад

The national giro bank in Netherton Liverpool had staff working there telling their bosses that the horizon system was faulty from day one, nodbody listened.

@monacophotographyevents2384 8 месяцев назад

@SkyEcho7 Absolutely agree regarding Hislop. He treats all sides of the political spectrum as fair game, irrespective of what his personal politics are. Also, he does appear to be moderately Religious, but that doesn't stop him going after Church leaders as well. Private Eye, and indeed HIGNFY, have been doing a great job over the years. And bearing in mind also that Hislop has embarrassed all sides with his outspoken criticisms when in front of various select committees.

@Calum_S 8 месяцев назад

The fact this episode still has COVID screens between the guests shows just how little the government actually cared to do anything about the scandal.

@Arcona 8 месяцев назад

If only they charged all the bent bastards for treason. Willingly letting this happen is a disgrace.

@BobMartinsback 8 месяцев назад

The computer didn't get it wrong, human beings programmed it to be wrong, then covered up their failings. If this had happened in the USA, could you imagine the size of the litigation settlements?

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

EXACTLY THAT. Seems there was a distinct lack of critical thinking in the higher echelons of the British Establishment - With or without intent

@dpbj1957 8 месяцев назад

There is history here. Remember the tainted blood scandal? Another cover-up and still people haven't been compensated properly.

@billgreen576 8 месяцев назад

The computer may have got it wrong but a computer is only as good as the humans who built it and ran it. This is really a problem of human beings in executive positions making repeated callous calls and then ass covering time and time again. And then using any personal gains made in those positions to leapfrog onto the next executive position before the shit hit the fan. Vicar Vennells was the one holding the bomb when it went off but loads of others knowingly passed the parcel. And, despite all the publicly exposed information still are.

@brachiator1 8 месяцев назад

Why couldn't they trace the money? Scores of people could not magically steal money without a trace. What happened to innocent people is disgusting.

@piphilify 8 месяцев назад

Yiu know its serious when neither Paul nor Ian are getting laughs on HIGNFY and they're not trying to get them.

@andrewmacdonald1749 8 месяцев назад

Unfortunately the old "tell them they are the only ones" is a classic tactic, bit of divide and conquer.

@GiratinaofFury 8 месяцев назад

What makes this most egregious is that everyone in high places knew the system was broken, but they continued to push for penalising people regardless. The system was known to be riddled with errors, but the Post Office kept using it, kept blaming the subpostmasters for the numbers, blocked any investigation, blocked any discussion, and showed nothing but bad faith on their end when it came to mediation. That's what makes this so heinous - they effectively said "We know the system is broken, let's see who we can blame for bad accounting and see how much money we can bleed from them,"

@SamuelBlack84 8 месяцев назад

That's human nature for you

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

@SamuelBlack84 Is it 🤔

@SamuelBlack84 8 месяцев назад

@SkyEcho7 I've seen enough of humanity at their very worst to see that given enough incentive, they'll do terrible things for one reason or another

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

@@SamuelBlack84 Yeah, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, a LOT, but I couldn't knowingly do that, could you?

@lyonnesse100 8 месяцев назад

The awful thing is that good, honest people have died through natural causes never to feel the relief of being exonerated, they had this huge black cloud over their lives until their end and some have taken their own lives, it's an horrendous scandal.

@cullen3624 8 месяцев назад

The apaling thing is that the government is not allowed take into consideration past failures when considering companies like Fujitsu for future contracts.😂😂 It's like being forced to use a shit builder who destroyed your house in the past!!😂

@ULHIS 8 месяцев назад

If you read the house of commons Hansards from the launch, you'll be in for a shock. It was known back then the issues and flaws.

@peterharrington8709 8 месяцев назад

When you consider that large pieces of software ARE very often buggy, and that's common knowledge it's difficult to believe that a court could convict a person beyond reasonable doubt?

@yaboi-km2qn 8 месяцев назад

Where was the money that they stole? No offshore account or anything? I don't know how it was this bad.

@SamuelBlack84 8 месяцев назад

The powers that be care little if at all about wrongdoing They just want someone to blame

@peterharrington8709 8 месяцев назад

@@SamuelBlack84 that's true, but what I mean is that if you go to trial then surely any vaguely knowledgeable jury would be unable to convict. I suppose that the key was to brainwash and harrang the defendants into pleading guilty instead...

@robdogwalker 8 месяцев назад

As my Son said the other day,surely the fact that this happened to hundreds of people using the same system were getting similar problems should habe raised red flag to the Post Office!

@SamuelBlack84 8 месяцев назад

Maybe they just didn't care

@michaelgoode9555 8 месяцев назад

I can tell you from the perspective of somebody who worked in the QA area of software development what happened here. This is non-regulated private sector where the board including in most cases the IT Director have no clue about IT and they hold this simple view that "somebody can fix it" if a problem occurs when the system is live. The bigger issue then is for the IT Director and their chums on the Board to downplay and hide the real issues. They need those fat cat bonuses and simply grift to get them. I saw just this very same behaviour at a major retailer in the mid noughties where an outside company was "developing" the new IT system and I was lined up to be the scapegoat because I would not sign off on software not fit for purpose. The very same will be happening today all over the UK. Public sector projects run over budget and are delayed due to the farcical tendering process, "friends of friends" on the boards at supplier companies and a complete lack of understanding of the complexities and rigour needed to produce high end, reliable IT systems. Every single public sector IT programme needs a deep dive now.

@danburycollins 8 месяцев назад

Worth noting that Ian Hislop always makes a point to give credit to Computer Weekly and other journalists who worked on this story..

@Salena905 8 месяцев назад

This is what happens when companies rely totally on tech 💯 of the time, they get lazy. I don't think EVERYONE who works there are to blame, but we need to make sure the people who are exactly to blame should be fired , takem to court etcetera and not just some poor patsy to take the blame. Huge thanks to all those people involved in cases like this and sharing them out fir the rest of us to see, we really appreciate your efforts 👏👏👏👏

@PoliceAuditUK 8 месяцев назад

I did some work for a private IT contractor who did IT work for the NHS. He took old faulty equipment and often dropped stuff and kicked it around the floor, knowing he could charge them again for new parts when they asked him for repairs. Not only that, he charged double the new price for the kit which he'd taken out of something else he repaired. Expecting people to behave decently when they latch on to a public funded cash cow is obviously too much to ask.

@WhiteHawk77 8 месяцев назад

It makes ZERO sense to have hundreds of people be under suspicion and at no point does anyone in charge think “hang on a minute, this is far too many people to all be guilty of the same thing all of a sudden, maybe it really is the software”. To get to beyond dozens into the hundreds and to not question that is the definition of insanity, how is that even possible?

@nightw4tchman 8 месяцев назад

Psstt for everyone just joining this... these weren't recent episodes of HIGNFY. A lot of people have known about this story for a long time, it's just now it's been an ITV drama that politicians give a toss.

@VLind-uk6mb 8 месяцев назад

I think it was posted to add to the mounting evidence that a lot of people knew about all this a long time ago, and were not listened to. You know, in the US, every politician worth his salt, and certainly every broadcaster, paid attention to Matt Drudge. Love him or hate him, he had fabulous sources. Every politician in the UK should have a subscription to Private Eye and pay attention. And this clip shows how very accurate their information was.

@howarthcd 8 месяцев назад

They only give a toss now because it's very much in the public eye due to the dramatisation, and there happens to be an election due.

@markjones-rc1nm 8 месяцев назад

Convictions convictions convictions...that's what the public want for PO, Fujitsu and MP's who knew

@johnlowe-tq6ey 8 месяцев назад

No accident, people planned this and lined their pockets at the expense of lives...pure corporate evil.

@awalk5177 8 месяцев назад

Computer systems are not infallible and often training in Software development is inadequate or does not follow the standards of testing. Here is demonstrated exactly that, AND the inadequacy of management to even check the system and acknowledge faults. What worries me is that people are blindly talking about "Artificial Intelligence" based on this kind of problem as a foundation. It is not only computer systems but the general degradation of Management training over the past 30 years, reflected in industry standards , dreadful customer service, failed projects and wasted public money. But the Executives and politicians always get their bonuses.

@chrisskelton2067 8 месяцев назад

There were so many signals that this was all wrong. Apart from disproportionate numbers of dishonest employees, did they not think it strange that so many who had worked honestly for years suddenly decided to embezzle at the same time?

@chrisalexthomas 8 месяцев назад

Lock all the people who knew it was faulty in Jail for 5 years minimum, no matter who they are.

@alanskyrme9048 8 месяцев назад

Where were the accountants and auditors?

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

It wouldn't, at this stage in proceedings, surprise me if accounting & auditing weren't in-house like their prosecution arm. The Post Office appears to be allowed to mark their own homework

@chrisfell5073 7 месяцев назад

4,000 plus and everybody has not come forward!! The expert worked for Fujitsu. So much for an Independent Expert.

@MLB9000 8 месяцев назад

Can't see Royal Mail (and possibly also Fujitsu) recovering from this to be honest. RM were already in financial difficulties before they lost most of their parcel business to their competitors during the last round of strikes, and that's the side of the business that makes the money. Just think about the VW dieselgate scandal and how much compensation they had to pay out, then times it by about a thousand. Just hope the victims get their compensation before the company folds.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Was it not the sale of the profit making parcel side of the business that CAUSED the strikes rather than strike action causing the sale 🤔

@millionaire5 8 месяцев назад

Royal Mail and Post Office are different companies, Royal Mail’s private and the Post Office is public

@ghengis430 8 месяцев назад

The likes of Kemi Badenoch trying to make themselves look heroic as they jump on the bandwagon, having not given a crap about it till it was raised by a telly programme. It has been beyond sickening to those of us aware of it for years.

@joerudnik9290 4 месяца назад

Fujitsu knew people were being imprisoned with their ‘false accounting’. Yet did nothing.

@acrodave9287 8 месяцев назад

The most galling thing about the whole sorry charade is that we know in advance that not a single PO boss or anybody in authority at any level will go to prison or face any serious consequences for their outright criminal corruption. As ever, prison is a punishment reserved solely for 'little people', even if the crime itself is fabricated. The most the actual perpetrators of the crime face is the possible removal of a Knighthood which I'm sure will be more than compensated for by being allowed to keep the cash. (Remember Fred Goodwin and the Bankers in charge during the Financial Crash?) Britain has the best democracy money can buy.

@SamuelBlack84 8 месяцев назад

All of our so-called rights and legal protection are easily ignored when the rich want them to be

@136miles 8 месяцев назад

Ian should get a knighthood for his work

@alexbuckenham1663 8 месяцев назад

Paul usually has a sort of antagonistic attitude towards Ian for the sake of the programme but he was feeding Ian the opportunity to take the credit on this one. He broke character entirely because Ian and Private Eye were amazing, rare voices in the media pushing for this justice.

@adrianlloyd6403 8 месяцев назад

The public sector in the UK specialises in cover ups and corruption.I don't understand why the bosses at the Post Office colluded, with a private firm like Fujitsu, to cover up the failings of an IT system developed by them,to then criminalise and convict a lot of innocent subpostmasters and subpostmistresses.I suspect money and bonuses had a lot to do with people turning a blind eye to the inadequacies of Horizon, and if that was their motivation for lying and obfuscating,then they deserve everything that's coming to them.I don't mean just the return of unjustified bonus payments to POL and Fujitsu employees to the compensation fund for the subpostmasters,but jail terms for the perversion of justice.

@timjackson3954 8 месяцев назад

This all goes back to when Fujitsu bailed out ICL. Presumably there was an unwritten quid pro quo that Fujitsu UK, employing British workers, would get looked upon favourably in bidding for future UK government contracts. Government contracts have a rather poor record of sharing risk equitably. Inevitably if and when things go wrong the client walks away with the money and the taxpayer foots the bill. In this case one imagines that in event of government pushback it would only take a raised eyebrow to remind our dear leaders how many jobs would be lost if Fujitsu decided its UK acquisition was unprofitable and should be shut down.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

@@timjackson3954 ICL?

@timjackson3954 8 месяцев назад

@@SkyEcho7 aka International Computers Ltd. It had a long and complicated history, was supposed to be the British answer to IBM. It went bust and was eventually sold to Fujitsu. So Fujitsu UK's rather complicated relationship with the British government.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

@@timjackson3954 Oh right. Thank you for that 🏆 Certainly adds another perspective to take into account as this shitshow continues to unravel

@zacmumblethunder7466 8 месяцев назад

What does it say about our country that this was known about and reported on by magazines, national and local radio stations, and television documentaries for over a decade, but it wasn't until a drama series was made that most people seem to have become aware of it and the UK government finally decided to do something about it?

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Nothing good that's for sure. As far as I'm aware the reporting on this scandal didn't start until 2008/9 - Global Financial Crash & the resulting austerity might have something to do with it. A lot of people will have been busy struggling with their own lives & perhaps not really paying attention to the plight of others. That though definitely doesn't excuse government ministers, The Post Office Board & management or Fujitsu 😡

@PP-bw8ig 8 месяцев назад

Fujitsu are still winning new UK government contracts. Time to investigate the individuals who award them £££.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Definitely long past time they did that

@ypeveldhuis4527 8 месяцев назад

Smelling something festering. At present, i feel FJ might be turning a corner, but let them proove it first. Repeat business is fine, as long as all is above board. Seen too much passing under the table, the lubricant of business, to trust things offhand.

@John64125 8 месяцев назад

The issue is at last getting the attention it deserves. This whole episode has been an embarrassment to the UK. It was nothing more or less than big company bullying small people, absolutely appalling. The fact the PO as supposed victim could accuse, judge and penalise people themselves is extraordinary. We have to learn from this and make sure the U.K legal system is a “justice” system that is able to protect the weak from the strong. This episode has shaken my belief in the British justice system, I didn’t think our system would allow this to happen.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

It is shocking & yeah there's a BIG difference between a legal system & a JUSTICE system

@DosGamerMan 8 месяцев назад

Not forgetting those that are no longer with us because of this. People should go to jail for this.

@ruk2023-- 8 месяцев назад

Look I have been involved with creating large scale software systems for 20+ years. There's just no way that anyone involved with this should still have a job at the very least. The catalogue of errors and process failures is too many to begin to start listing.

@Falstaff1893 8 месяцев назад

This is a Tory party problem first & foremost this shows how a bent political cesspit wastes £Billions they don't own by rewarding their Donors !

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Unfortunately no but definitely yes 😕 NO because it was Tony Blair that signed off the Fujitsu Horizon deal YES . because I always considered Blair a Tory with a red rosette - PFIs drowned Public Services with inbuilt debt for decades, some still not finished . Thatcher started the rot by selling EVERYTHING the taxpayer already owned to SOME taxpayers & non taxpayers . Can't argue against anything else you've stated as it's glaringly obvious, to anyone who cares to take any notice, that's what's going on

@Falstaff1893 8 месяцев назад

@@SkyEcho7 Sir Tory Blair the Man who destroyed British Steel & gave the CONservatives the Student mortgage scam as a stealth tax yes its the same Tories called New Labour but carried on with Thatcherite ideals

@missd2657 8 месяцев назад

'The worst contracting fiasco in history of the public sector', there should be an addition to that which reads 'that we know of'.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Yep

@The8224sm 7 месяцев назад

None of these perpetrators will see the inside of a jail cell in Hindmarsh Prison.

@malcolmlawrie1633 8 месяцев назад

Were did the money go or was it never in the system. With a post office investigation your guilty unless you prove your innocence

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Which money?

@robtheplod 8 месяцев назад

Shows how Government works... perfectly!

@daiu48 8 месяцев назад

This fiasco is also about privatisation in 2012, employee victimisation in the CWU and the fact that the sub-postmasters/ mistresses were not considered as employees.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

'employee victimisation in the CWU'? Not heard about that. More detail needed to understand where you're coming from on this point

@daiu48 8 месяцев назад

@@SkyEcho7 WSWS. 23 August 2023 ‘Royal Mail workers describe wave of victimisations and bullying’.

@daiu48 8 месяцев назад

Dave Ward, Andy Furey and an independent review headed by Lord Falconer!

@stevegreen5552 8 месяцев назад

From an IT viewpoint, systems (of this size, certainly) are designed with various stages of documentation before a line of code is written. Requirements definitions, business system design, detailed analysis, computer system design, numerous program specifications, testing criteria - all stages to go through. Remote access will not have spawned by magic - it must have been part of the design. For anyone to claim that Horizon was incapable of doing it, now that it has proved to have been done, is clear evidence of falsehood - whether directly or by someone misleading the spokespersons.

@BazzyPredPop 8 месяцев назад

And ironic, it wasn’t adding thousands, only taking it away out of peoples accounts If it been adding thousands of pounds to people accounts, it soon would’ve been listed as faulty

@peterrenn6341 8 месяцев назад

There's another element to all this in the public's perception of the Post Office. Like the BBC, the NHS and other institutions we instinctively feel it's 'ours'. Despite privatisations etc. we feel attached in a way we don't about other large businesses - and the outrage we feel for these poor employees is even stronger as a result.

@gentlefieldtheorynerd853 8 месяцев назад

BBC is not "OURS", it is 2 thirds funded by Billionaires. The views of the bbc are the views of very sinful, very greedy, very idle super rich stale pale male nondoms who cannot stand the british and who have their own countries at heart, like ozzy murkydick.

@Nastyjonny 8 месяцев назад

If the documentary on the post office is to be believed, it wasn’t a bug causing the problems it was a group of people in an office co ordinating an attack on post masters. Even the aftermath is pandering to the post office, horizon and Fujitsu

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

There were bugs in the software AND the computer helpline at Fujitsu AND the highest echelons at the Post Office

@amayastrata4629 8 месяцев назад

Right, given that Fujitsu already had a disastrous track record with the nhs software, then who are the shareholders/directors, etc involved in it. Got to be chummy contracts again.

@TheTwofatgamers 8 месяцев назад

Don't worry some low level exec will be offered up as a sacrificial lamb for this, the people in charge will get away with it and nothing will change.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Yeah, unfortunately I think you're correct

@paul8161 8 месяцев назад

If futijsu messed up the nhs i.t,, how exactly did it get awarded a contract for the post office,, surely fujitsu should be paying back the nhs the government and the countless wrongly convicted post office staff to.,, fujitsu, the post office and the government are as crooked as each other and should all face fines,, prison ect.

@jockmchaggis6797 8 месяцев назад

It's amazing what a nicely stuffed manilla envelope full of notes can do..

@paul8161 8 месяцев назад

@jockmchaggis6797 , its not amazing, it's predictable.,if that's the case then there's a few off behind bars 😂.

@scene2much 8 месяцев назад

There should be a quality assurance test plan and manifest of results at various intervals of the testing until the tests were deemed complete . Typically then there is a final report which manifests which known defects in the software still exist and which ones had been detected and fixed. There should be engineering notes about the process of fixing found bugs during the testing.. This constitutes a lot of evidence. If it has not been purged, it will find the person who's really responsible for the defects. That person is the person that you need to flip to find out who in the management structure stonewalld efforts to blame the software.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Yes, thank you From what has been revealed it appears the governmentS & top people at the Post Office knew all this 'inconvenient' information & not only covered it all up but totally destroyed innocent people's lives to keep a veneer of success that led to promotion & bonus payments for those at the top 😡

@roxorange6022 8 месяцев назад

All software projects I've ever worked on were based on bonuses for the project manager to get it out "on time and under budget". Then they moved on to the next disastrous project. Government was their cash cow. I was once told in a meeting I was doing too much testing and to stop. This debacle should now be compulsory viewing for every IT manager, project manager and stakeholder before starting a job.

@freyna 8 месяцев назад

At what point should the leaders at the time be held to account for criminal and negligent behaviour and put in prison for deception? None of them will go to prison when they should be held to account.

@rogerbarton1790 8 месяцев назад

I wonder if the passports of those who could possibly be facing criminal proceedings have been confiscated. Also their assets should be frozen with a view to donating them to the compensation fund should they be found guilty.

@billbonnington7916 8 месяцев назад

there HAS to be criminal conspiracy charge coming from this, and those responsible for covering it up have to be prosecuted.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

100% agree with that

@leviercosmicwind 8 месяцев назад

They wanted to shut local post offices, the whole drive by the Post Office was to achieve this with bonuses.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Yeah I was wondering if there were other possible reasons WHY that there might be running in parallel with sheer GREED. Some of the Postmasters/mistresses had to sell their premises & some, apparently, weren't allowed to sell to their preferred buyer. Location! Location! Location! Certainly at least suggests something more sinister, if that's possible to conceive, was going on

@jonsmith5058 8 месяцев назад

Thing is, the leaders here will weasel out of criminal responsibility. Can we quickly knock together a shoddy IT system that just states they are guilty and send them to jail? Seemed enough evidence for them in the past.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Seems we have several people with the required skills to make it happen right here in the comments

@numeristatech 8 месяцев назад

Why did nobody notice that computer said "no" but cash-flow actually said "yes"?

@stephenconway2468 8 месяцев назад

This is criminal. The attack on a company does not itself make sense. The actual people involved should be gone after. That includes Fujisu, the Post Office and any auditor....unless the auditors were lied to. If they were lied to, that is fraud.

@SkyEcho7 8 месяцев назад

Not forgetting The Governments that have had a Duty, a Seat on The Post Office Board, signed off on the Fujitsu Horizon deal, etc

@siohmy 8 месяцев назад

Software companies love to tell you you’re the only one experiencing an issue. Have it happened to me, albeit no where near as serious as this, only to find out issue was widespread. More horrific is that it is now coming out that the government knew about this 10 years ago but in their corrupt nature did nothing about it. They’ll do everything to sweep it under the carpet so fantastic work by all concerned to bring this to the public in the loudest way possible, from the journalists to the creators of the drama. The whole affair is truly sickening but unfortunately I do not see a way that those responsible will be properly brought to justice as it involved Fujitsu, the post office and the government.