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Post Office inquiry live: Paula Vennells denies trying to close down Horizon review - BBC News Post Office inquiry live: Paula Vennells denies trying to close down Horizon review - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC moves onto the findings of the Second Sight report and asks Vennells how she defines the term "systemic issues". Beer goes on to ask Vennells whether she agrees that the Post Office's executive team, which she led, shielded the board from the company's "dirty laundry".
Vennells says that her understanding was that Second Sight "had found no systemic issue with the technology" and that "systemic" meant "something that was wide-ranging and across the system...or a scale of branches". "I'd say it was completely wrong," Vennells replies.
She adds that Second Sight had also found some issues with "processes, support and training". Beer continues that there is a suggestion the executive team could manage problems away, but if the board were to know about these problems they'd need to disclose them to sub-postmasters, Parliament, and the public.
Beer asks if an issue with balances at 500 branches was a "systemic issue". "I feel very strongly about that," says Vennells, "because one of the elements that was so important to me was to have the board challenge [me]".
Vennells says she accepted Second Sight's definition of systemic from an earlier piece of work where "they talked about system-wide or something like that".
Beer clarifies that the term would be something that affected all of the estate or a very large part of the estate and would "systemic" have referred to something that affected 500 branches?
"That would be a serious issue," Vennells replies.
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