Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560-579)
MR SEAN
SHINE, MR
PETER HOLMES
AND MR
ANDY NAISH
22 MAY 2006
Q560 Mr Drew: That was three and
a half months after you said that you had a working system that
was running nicely.
Mr Naish: Yes.
Q561 Mr Drew: If I can go back, from
May 2005 you have real data. You may not physically have that
real data in your computers but, take Leicestershire for example,
somebody could have said, "Let's just look at Leicestershire,
let's look at what the farmers are putting in, let's look at the
data and what we expect it to be. Let's try Leicestershire and
see if it works for Leicestershire." That did not happen.
Mr Naish: No, and there are some
good reasons for that which make it difficult to do that at the
last stages of the process. The way the system works when it establishes
entitlement is that it needs to take the claims across the whole
of England in order to make those entitlements. It is difficult
to run those end pieces of the programme on a small part of the
population.
Q562 Mr Drew: I understand the problem;
you need to know the size of the wedding cake before you can actually
cut the slices.
Mr Naish: Yes.
Q563 Mr Drew: Let us say that somebody
somewhere—presumably the RPA—could have come to you
and said, "Let's just test one of the slices" you are
saying your system could not have worked with that.
Mr Naish: It would have been an
unrealistic test to have used just a small part of the overall
area.
Q564 Mr Drew: Or a random or typical
set of data or a sub-set.
Mr Naish: Any sub-set would have
been something different to what was intended with the system
design.
Q565 Chairman: If I have understood
you correctly, what you are saying is that until you got all of
the claims in you did not know what the totality was of the area
that you were dealing with. That was the sticking point, was it?
Mr Naish: That is right.
Mr Drew: I cannot get my head round about
not being able to carry out a test on some of the data.
Q566 Chairman: If you are saying
that the first time you were able to run it in anger, if you like,
a proper real live test with all the bits functioning was January
or February 2006, how does that fit in with the fact that even
at that time there were still unvalidated claims where, by definition,
you would not have known what the area was that was being discussed.
Mr Naish: The tests we performed
at that stage we used those unvalidated claims as well and we
went through an analysis step with the RPA at each stage of that
test to make sure that anything that was unexpected would be explained.
Q567 Chairman: Do you know when it
was in January or February you actually did your first real live
test to see if it all hung together?
Mr Naish: It would have been in
the first or the second week of January.
Q568 Chairman: Were you asked before
Lord Bach gave his Oxford farming conference speech by either
the RPA or by Defra or by both what the payment deadline would
be at that time in the light of the tests that you ran?
Mr Shine: The consistent question
that was asked of Accenture with regard to the system was, would
the IT system be there and be ready in order to make entitlements
and payments? We were asked that question on many occasions. The
answer to that question was yes, the IT system will be there and
running in order to make payments. As my colleague has already
pointed out earlier on, that is one part of the system; the other
business process steps were not our responsibility. As I also
said earlier on and I think it is worthwhile repeating, our system
was there as required and as agreed. Our system did work. The
IT system components did work as required. What we have been talking
about here is the business process and the use of that system.
As Helen Ghosh said last week, that was the part that gummed up,
but the IT system components were working and were then from October.
I think it is worthwhile having that clarified in that it was
there, the system components were there and were there in good
time. The question we were asked on a consistent basis was, will
the IT system components be there to enable the rest of the process
to continue, and the answer to that question was consistently
yes.
Q569 Mr Drew: When it came to February
2006 the system crashed.
Mr Shine: The IT system did not
crash. The IT system continues to be available and continues to
work. The IT system component required to handle the validation
is there and is working and continues to work.
Q570 Mr Drew: When the CLA in their
evidence said there was "the frustration of operators who
are professional people trying to cope with essentially a lousy
IT system" they are completely wrong.
Mr Holmes: They are completely
wrong, yes.
Q571 Mr Drew: The system is not crashed.
Mr Holmes: No, the IT system is
working and has been working.
Q572 Mr Drew: Why then did Helen
Ghosh say "For some reason, having started to make the payments,
the whole system gummed up"?
Mr Holmes: That comes back to
the earlier comment at the beginning of today's session where
Helen has since said that she meant to refer to the wider business
system not just the IT system.
Q573 Chairman: What did you understand
went wrong?
Mr Shine: I think as was discussed
last week, there was quite a discussion that you have had around
the business process, the components. The IT system components
are working, continue to work, have been there since October and
are working.
Q574 Chairman: Let us say for a moment
that we put all the ticks in the box. You have done your job;
you have produced a system that is capable of working. What has
let you down? You are in the line of fire and your defence is,
"We produced a system that was capable of delivering"
but from the outside from the farmers' point of view, you are
the authors of a system that has not delivered. You are saying
it has. What parts of the business process did not work?
Mr Shine: I think as we have said
already the part of the business process involved in the validation
and the decision to approve payments, that did seem to take longer
than expected. The IT components underlying all of those are working
and continue to work.
Q575 Chairman: What do you believe
was the final, convincing piece of evidence that led to ministers
pulling the plug on what had been assurances on the payment deadline?
Mr Holmes: I do not think we are
in a position to understand that. We were not party to those discussions.
Q576 Chairman: Somebody must have
explained to you why things had changed, or do you live in a sort
of information free zone?
Mr Holmes: No.
Q577 Chairman: Nobody from the RPA
came and explained why the then secretary of state, Mrs Beckett,
said that she had effectively lost confidence with the person
you had had a lot of dealings with, Mr McNeill. Did nobody come
to you and explain why that had occurred?
Mr Holmes: What was clear to us
was . . .
Q578 Chairman: Would you like to
answer my question? Did nobody come? Yes or no?
Mr Holmes: In fact the permanent
secretary phoned us up to make us aware of the fact.
Q579 Chairman: What did he say to
you? How did he communicate this new era of awareness?
Mr Holmes: Basically it was a
very brief phone call; it was a "for information" phone
call.
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