UKtech50 winner interview: Alan Bates, Post Office Horizon scandal campaigner
UKtech50 winner Alan Bates talks to Computer Weekly about why the Post Office needs to be modernised, how to deploy an IT system the right way and his plans to write a book
Computer Weekly’s UKtech50 most influential person in 2024 is not a high-flying CEO of a tech giant, he doesn’t lead on IT in a large government department, and he doesn’t run an innovative startup.
Instead, the newly knighted Alan Bates is the man who exposed the Post Office Horizon scandal, and continues to fight for justice for his fellow subpostmasters.
When Bates and his partner Suzanne decided to buy a small-town Post Office in Wales, the last thing they expected was a nearly 25-year battle for justice.
The man who exposed the Post Office scandal was simply hoping for a quiet life. Instead, what followed was a dramatic cover-up, filled with smoke and mirrors, lies and terrible injustice that not even the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.
It all started in 2000, when the Post Office introduced a new IT system, Horizon, by supplier Fujitsu, nationally.
“There were so many aspects that hadn’t been looked at when they brought the system in,” says Bates. This included the subpostmaster contract, which still contained sections written in the Victorian age, and had no mention of IT systems.
The roll-out, he says, was “poorly done and all done at a rush”. Bates was given a day and a half of training, while his staff had one day, before they were given a huge manual to follow. He describes the training itself as “nonsense really”, nothing more than “a box-ticking exercise”.
The problems begin
The system was trialled in a number of post offices and went straight from pilot to full-scale roll-out without a review. Bates explains that he knows there are ways to deploy a system and fix errors as they come up. “If a company wants to do that and accept the liability, that’s fine,” he says.
“But what the Post Office was doing was that when problems came along, they were landing them with the subpostmaster,” adds Bates. “That’s wrong.”
There was obviously a deliberate ploy by the Post Office to keep everyone in the dark
Alan Bates
It didn’t take long before he encountered problems with the system. One of the things he discovered quickly was “how tricky it was to actually interrogate the system to find out if something had happened”. Coupled with an overnight software upgrade, it spelled trouble. The system showed missing funds.
At the time, Bates thought this was a one-time error only happening to him. He contacted Post Office management, but nothing was done, and the Post Office denied it had anything to do with the IT system.
Over the years, Bates began hearing stories of others having problems, but he says: “You didn’t find out what was going on elsewhere. There was obviously a deliberate ploy by the Post Office to keep everyone in the dark about what was really going on.”
Lack of understanding
Bates believes one of the key problems was that senior management didn’t know much about these systems and the potential of what they could do.
“I think that’s what caused the problem later on when they dug in their heels,” he says, referring to the Post Office’s response that the computer system was practically 100% accurate, with billions of transactions going through it and only the odd thing going wrong.
Instead, subpostmasters were blamed for the errors, and prosecuted for theft and false accounting.
Bates said it’s OK that things go wrong, but you have to own up to it and try to resolve it.
Over the 24 years since, he and his group of subpostmasters have worked tirelessly to expose the truth. From mediation schemes to investigations, the High Court, and now finally a public inquiry, Bates has lived and breathed the Post Office scandal.
Asked if he ever felt like giving up, he says: “Well, you can’t do that really. Before I went into the Post Office, I was in project management. This is a project – you have to see it through to the end, you can’t walk away halfway through it.
“You keep meeting all these people, as well, and hearing these horrible stories,” adds Bates, referring to how subpostmasters were almost subject to a witch hunt, losing their homes, livelihoods and friends.
Committing to justice
The campaigning has taken over his life. Hobbies he previously had, such as being involved with local history societies, had to be shelved. “You have to make a commitment; you have to cut a lot out of your life,” says Bates.
To get away from it all, he goes hill walking. “That keeps me sane, I think,” he chuckles.
The focus now is on negotiating final settlements for the subpostmasters, but Bates points out that people will never get back the past 20 years of their lives.
His main focus now is getting the compensation paid, and once he’s achieved that, he plans to “rest a bit easier”, and has ideas of writing a book about the Post Office scandal as a record for the future.
One of the issues of the public inquiry, adds Bates, is that there seems to be some “corporate amnesia” in the organisation. “Hopefully, being interviewed under caution by the police will refresh some memories,” he says.
Criminal convictions
While the Post Office scandal has received a lot of media attention lately, not least due to ITV’s dramatisation of the events, there have been many other scandals over the years, where company directors and organisations seem to walk away scot-free.
“I think, hopefully, if there are criminal convictions, it will act as a deterrent,” he says. “But we’ll have to wait and see on that.”
One thing the inquiry has made clear, according to Bates, is the need for organisational change within the Post Office.
“I don’t expect a lot will change in the short term,” he says, adding that there is, however, a clear need to modernise the whole system and “let go of what it was”. How that would look is something Bates has a lot of ideas about. One is to look at expressions of interest from large, tech-savvy organisations to help bring the Post Office into the modern world.
“It’s a totally dysfunctional organisation and it hasn’t moved with the times,” he says. “It’s the only business I see at the moment which is investing heavily in what is a shrinking market. That’s why I keep saying that it needs to be sold off to a big commercial enterprise, even if it’s for a pound.”
Bates adds that there is enormous potential there, with a willing workforce of independent businesspeople and a country-wide network. “It needs such a heavy investment in really good technology and some forward thinking,” he says.
A true reward
Forward thinking isn’t the only thing Bates wants. He also highlights accountability, knowledge and openness as key for any senior leader in a business, something everyone on the UKtech50 list shows.
Bates says he is honoured to be Computer Weekly’s most influential person in technology for 2024, but this isn’t the only accolade he’s received. He was recently offered, and accepted, a knighthood, despite having turned down an OBE in 2023.
He rejected the OBE last year because former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells had a CBE for her services to the Post Office. “That was such an insult to the [Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance] group. They would have rightly gone bananas with me to say the least, and there’s no way I could’ve accepted it,” he explains.
This time, things were different. Not only was it the day he met with the Metropolitan Police about their criminal investigation, it was also the first day of Vennells giving evidence in the inquiry, having had her CBE withdrawn by the King.
“When I accepted and said yes, it wasn’t just on my behalf, it was on behalf of the whole group and a recognition of what we’ve had to go through,” says Bates. “I might wear the title, but I think all of them deserve it.”
It might be a little while yet before he gets a moment to sit down and write his book, but Bates is hopeful that justice isn’t too far away.
Once he’s managed to ensure the subpostmasters have received compensation, Bates says he will “be able to sit down a bit more”.
