As an ex UK IT Civil Servant with 15 years experience on IT, I see the the PO Horizon scandal as just an extreme example of the way our CS works. Whitehall demands a particular thing. Department Heads pass on the demand, and it goes on down the line. With no level ever daring to to raise any problems or objections. Until it ends up on the desk of the person who has to implement the change. Then we end up with 2 alternative realities. The managers who maintain the fiction that everything is always going perfectly, and the staff who know it is a total mess, or that it can never work in the way claimed. The staff then end up being split into "sheep and goats". The sheep follow the party line, brown nose the managers and get an easy life. The goats raise problems, make the managers look bad. So they are harassed, overloaded with work and given bad annual reviews. Until they either shut up, or leave. They end up spending thousands on a new IT system that fails badly. The development manager gets promoted and leaves just before it goes live. Then the replacement manager gets praised and promoted for fixing the problems that many already predicted would happen after it went live. Win, win.
Your experience an an ex UK IT civil servant certainly rings true of what I have seen in regards to how government departments work. You describe the problem really well. In part 4 I'll give you some stuff from psych that helps support your thoughts on this.
It seems that the dynamic at Post Office from a psychological point of view was really quite simple. It was a group think that PO must be protected at all costs. If that meant prosecuting and persecuting SPMs so be it. But one could see as well on occasion elements of sadism creeping in. Appeared to contain psychological aspects that would make for an effective totalitarian state with a combination of Orwell and Kafka.
Yes, you are spot on. My passion rise a bit in relation to this in part 2. I think i make the point you are making, but you make the point better than me, I think.
I am in the U.K. To say this scandal has caused a bit of noise, is an understatement. The noise is deafening. I think if the Post Office wasn’t a monopoly the British Public would run them out of business. Government ministers are passing the buck around. In a “Who me? Naa, not me! Look over there.
Yes, you haev summed up the response from parliament very well indeed. It's shameful how they have sat on this for so long and are now ducking responsibility. The UK government was the sole shareholder of Post Office Limited and they should have been paying attention and held the management accountable.
@@PaulDuckett the govermenwas paying a lot of attention.that why innacent people went to jail to fund knighted clerics.and pillers of the tory community .bbc silent daily mail silent and you tube combing through are comment to judge our out rage .either we need to kick the tory out the uk or the rest of us better leave this prison.
You're not quite accurate when you say nothing happened until the TV programme although I agree that did get the Government to move.. A lot of people, me included, were convinced that the PO was wrong while the prosecutions were happening and wrote to their MPs about it. Of course the MPs ignored this to toe the party line. Also there was group litigation before the High Court in 2018 and 2019 brought by Alan Bates and others (sub postmasters) which ruled in the claimants favour and was very critical of the PO and a case before the Court of Criminal Appeal in Hamilton & Others [2021] EWCA Crim 577 on 23 April 2021, in which the Court held that the private prosecutions of 39 sub-postmasters had been “an affront to justice”. That was for information not a criticism of a fascinating series,
Thanks so much for posting this. You are absolutely right. There were a lot of folk making a lot of noise about this - the folk at Private Eye being among them. I guess for folk like you it's a great thing to see the momentum that has built up but tainted with a feeling of 'what the bloody hell took you all so long'. I guess that maybe it's more the case that the scandal didn't ignite the widescale public condemnation til the drama series aired. And yes, there were lots of wins on the way to the Court of Appeal. You are absolutely right to point that out. I think the facts got in the way of a good story ... but often it takes a good telling of a story to get people's heckles up. So glad you are finding the series of interest and it's good to be alongside you on this, even though it took me a while get get here!
The story has all sorts of subplots (from the top down). At the top, extreme arrogance and absolute uncaring of the harm they did to ordinary people, and digging the hole deeper because they were covering up their culpability. The bottom because power corrupts and puts the brain into a fixed belief, the clowns who did the investigations into alleged fraud, were not in any way trying to get at the truth, only in confirming what their 'belief' was. The judiciary, as usual siding with the 'establishment' and authority (the right people). The lawyers, as always. profiting from people's misery.
Nice analysis and I agree with it. 'Authority' is a key aspect I will pick up in the final part of the series (part 4). Hopefully that episode will be a good one for you.
@@PaulDuckett thanks Paul and lets not forget the lawyers (both for and against). they took the vast majority of the money at the settlement. The 500 post masters and mistresses only got a fraction of the money when they sued and won against the Post Office.
Arrogance, inability and too much "power" in the hands of people who shouldn't have been allowed to turn on a kettle or write a holiday postcard. I would like to suggest that if you are going to work for Fushitsu or POL, you have regular check ups, because working in these environments, apparently, totally destroys memory!
Yes, you've nailed some key processes here. Not the one's I'm going to pick up in part 4, so look out for that as it might add to you already good understanding of some of those key processes that led to the injustice.
Yes, I think the series will go down as a landmark on in regards to being a trigger for progressive social change and as a reminder how the arts can be a powerful sector to hold our politicians accountable ... which is probably why some political parties do their best to shut the arts down!
I don't understand how everyone missed the news that covered this - newspapers, TV News 10 and more years ago. Why did everyone blank it? It took a drama to make it personal, I guess.
I've known about it for years through the newspapers, many people either believed in the convictions or didn't care as it didn't affect them personally.
@@PaulDuckett imagine when it hits the usa and the americans will be thinking with the helps of msn that a sunnek saved the uk and is a heo of the people .and paul youtube are blocking people from coment on the sly i had to screen save and send a report yet again to youtube .it broken no comunity standards .thats why it was removed on the sly and only found out when i tried to edit.
this is what you tube does not like .yet yo go over to any right wing dodgy youtube sight you see hate fueld by racism and other hurtfull thigs people very angry and allowed to say what they like with no fear.
Yep, and they did a great job with it, particularly Private Eye. It just didn't grab the public's attention in the way the drama did which is the thing that is, I think, really interesting.
I’ve not seen the drama as I don’t watch TV. However, the power of dramas such as Cathy Come Home, Poor Cow, Up the Junction from my youth is well know. Well done ITV@@PaulDuckett
Yes, I can't help think this too. This is a type of corporate behaviour that really damages the public interest and is driven by focusing on increasing shareholder value at all cost. When corporations focus on that at the expense of the public interest, that is commonly where we find corruption surfacing. It's pretty terrible stuff. I link to the issue of the UK Post Office being a statutory corporation in part 4, I think you'll find this of interest.
I will watch with interest. I hope by plagiarism you mean more then text, but thought and lazy thought too. Thank you, at least, for an intriguing introductory video.
Many thanks. Yes, you hope right. It's not, maybe, an obvious connection to plagiarism. At least it a type of plagiarism that is rarely discussed, not really talked about at universities but sits at the heart of the scandal when things went to court. Hopefully I have you intrigued enough to follow the series through :)
Yes, you are absolutely right. It's becoming obvious that even at this late stage Post Office Limited still don't understand how bad they have been and that's probably why they are continuing to be so bad.
Prosecutions took place before Horizon. Prosecutions will still occur, but not based on the old version Horizon. So current day prosecutions are a completely different thing.
@@pippipster6767 You can't repair an accounting system as badly screwed as Horizon. I was Head of Finance in WEU, an International Organisation peer to NATO, I've written systems code, the list of fatal errors is extensive from system design fifty years out of date to structural errors to malpractice to downright fraud by POL. Henry Staunton clearly wanted to throw it out, the Treasury told him to live within his budget, he was starting to blow the whistle when Kemi Badenoch fired him. That's a serious auditor obeying his professional responsibilities. Then add in the turpitude in POL, and you have a body unfit to prosecute a mouse.
The title is rather misleading. I never got the punchline which was your view on this from a psychology point of view. I know all the facts you mentioned in the video already.
I'm so sorry about that. I didn't mean to mislead you. I do mention that this is the first of a series on this topic and that I will make those connections to psychlogy and plagiarism in a later part, but I think I could have done more to emphasise the point - not least to add that into the description box and to make it clear this is only part 1 of the video. I've now made those corrections. The connections to psychology and plagiarism will come out in the final part, which will be part 4. Haven't made that yet, but when I do, you could skip straight to that if you like and get the punchline. kind thoughts, paul
@@PaulDuckett the UK PO scandal is almost identical to Australia's Robodebt debacle. Federal Govt. ministers & senior public servants were 100x more concerned about their public image & 'kicking the crap out of dole bludgers' than seeking the truth.
@@wilson2455 the people of england looking for work have been driven to suicides drven by dwp looking for a bonus .on made up b.s. like being sanctioned for going to a job interviews.backed by grinning tory ministers .
Hiya, So good to know that the story has got you wanting to hear more. Parts 2-4 are coming. I have scripted them, I just need to shoot them and then edit etc. So, they should be coming out soon but will take me a little while to get them done (have to fit it around my work as my work don't really support me doing this sort of thing). If you subscribe and hit the notification bell, you'll get a message to let you know when they are up on my channel. I hope you enjoy them :)
