Chisholm: helping Paula Vennells fail upwards

Sir Alex Chisholm KCB was one of the most powerful government civil servants during a crucial phase of the Post Office scandal, and to nerds like me, his evidence was always going to be of some interest.

Chisholm made it quite clear (watch it here) he was crawling all over the Post Office’s disastrous defence to the Bates v Post Office group litigation, but that every duff decision was its to make alone.

“I was very clear in my advice to the Secretary of State”, Chisholm told the Inquiry, “that the department need to be a neutral party in relation to litigation so we could respond and deal with the fallout and the consequences of remediation.”

Chisholm joined the Business department (then known as BEIS) in September by 2016. In Chisholm’s words, by that stage the “prosecutions of subpostmasters had ceased… 33 cases had already been referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and the civil litigation that definitively exposed the multiple failings within POL had already begun.”

Chisholm evidently knew something was up. But it seems he was content to watch a government-owned company drive itself over a cliff, in order to avoid being implicated in the disaster. Allowing the directors of an organisation to tank a billion pound business because you want to be there to clear up the mess smacks of negligence.

Avoiding reality

Chisholm spent much of his evidence setting out the extent of what might be called his implausible deniability. He was fully aware of the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance campaign, the media reports, the MPs’ concerns, the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s investigation and the looming litigation. He also told the Inquiry that he smelt a rat when he looked at the information coming from the Post Office. “The Post Office had maintained for years that there were no problems with Horizon”, he told the Inquiry “and they used… these stock phrases… to say there was no evidence of system-wide problems with the Horizon software.”

By 2018, the Post Office’s “stock phrases” of reassurance began to irk Chisholm. They “kept appearing in the briefings and I began to think that they were, you know, designed not to kind of really invite one in and to show the full reality.”

In May of that year, he demanded more information from the Post Office, who were reluctant to hand it over, claiming legal privilege, an almighty red flag for a shareholder.

Chisholm was so concerned that in October 2018 he convened a meeting with the Post Office General Counsel, Jane MacLeod (who has refused to be questioned by the Inquiry) to try to find out what was going on with the litigation. During the meeting, Chisholm said he told the Post Office “You’re in a hole, you’re still digging”. He told the Inquiry “I’m asking even at that time, ‘shouldn’t you be settling?’”

Helping Vennells fail upwards

Paula Vennells giving evidence to the Inquiry in May 2024

Chisholm knew all in the Post Office garden was far from rosy, which makes it hard to square his actions when it came to rubber-stamping the Post Office CEO Paula Vennells’ CBE.

Although he was not asked about it during his evidence, Chisholm explains his involvement in the process in his witness statement. Six days after Chisholm’s October 2018 meeting with the Post Office, the BEIS Honours Secretariat told officials at UK Government Investments (UKGI) that Vennells had been nominated for a CBE. In response, UKGI highlighted the ongoing litigation but said they thought it “shouldn’t stop Paula’s nomination”. The issue went to Chisholm for his opinion.

“Through my private secretary”, he writes, “I said that I was ‘content for the information in (UKGI’s) email below to be passed to the Cabinet Office’. I made the point that ‘the litigation relates to Post Office Limited contracts and systems going back to 1999 and that Paula Vennells has been CEO since 2011’. I accepted and agreed with the UKGI view that the nomination could proceed. My view, in October 2018, was that there were at that time insufficient reasons to withdraw the nomination. I understand that I was one of a number of people who confirmed the same. At that time, we were not aware of the deficiencies which came to light in the March 2019 Judgment, and subsequently.”

Throughout the cover-up period of the scandal (2013 to 2019), Post Office execs dissembled to a credulous board. Through them, incomplete information was fed via UKGI and directly to Chisholm and the BEIS ministers. Chisholm was onto this, and indicated the Post Office was heading towards legal disaster, yet he still saw these problems as “insufficient reasons” to oppose Vennells’ nomination. As Chief Executive, Vennells was directly responsible for pointing the Post Office ship towards oncoming iceberg and charging to meet it.

A clue as to how much Chisholm cared about the scandal, Subpostmasters and the fate of the Post Office might come from a private note (which surfaced during Greg Clark’s evidence) written in 2019 by the acting CEO of the Post Office, Al Cameron, to his successor Nick Read. Cameron writes: “Alex doesn’t want us to do anything that might damage his career prospects”.

Seen through that lens, a lot of things make sense.


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16 responses to “Chisholm: helping Paula Vennells fail upwards”

  1. At least Kelly Tollhurst actually seemed to be alive!

  2. What is quite interesting from Chisholm is his apparent belief that nothing was wrong with Horizon, there were no findings of problems, absolutely nothing was amiss, at any point up to the Court decision in March 2019. This is really stretching ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

  3. The arrogance of these people beggars belief. Where does the Civil Service find them? Apparently quite happy for innocent people to be thrown under a bus and for a public entity to run up huge legal bills simply to prolong their agony. P*ss ups and breweries come to mind.

  4. Hi Nick Wallis,
    Sorry not related to your present blog, but have been reading your book that was published in 2021 from a book source in New Zealand.
    Has the content been updated since the Post Office Inquiry has been under way?
    Am keen to follow as closely as I can.
    Are you intending to write another book with the latest developments or are you waiting for the Inquiry’s deliberations to be concluded?
    Would be very interested in your comments please.
    Thanks,
    Lindsay Scott

  5. Brilliant analysis Nick thank you so much. Chisholm has so much to answer for by his inaction. Whilst I don’t think all permanent secretaries are this ineffective, Chisholm’s evidence together with the lamentable performance from Sarah Munby leads to the suspicion that a lot of them are just looking out for No 1.

  6. It is staggering. With every new witness the evidence just keeps on getting worse. How they all try to justify their
    actions (or lack of ). The disjointed and dysfunctional management, the incompetence and ineptitude of government
    and civil service is deplorable. The excuses surrounding “value for money” and managing tax payers money is sickening to listen to. No political party can claim innocence in this catastrophe. They have all had a hand in it one way or another but none accept any accountability.
    As a taxpayer I want them to just pay the redress. Don’t argue over amounts, pay them what they ask for. These are honest people who’s lives and reputations were destroyed. I doubt they are claiming more than they are rightly due and if its the publics money they are concerned about ask the public how they want this resolved. I suspect the majority would say pay them what they ask. Stop wasting money on lawyers, delays etc. (Gob smacking that Ben Foat’s legal advice for half a days evidence for the inquiry cost £700,000. How is that managing the public purse! Disgusting). Billions have been wasted on projects by various governments without going through the proper processes so do it for the sub postmasters and their families.
    I am sick of hearing the pathetic excuses made by civil servants and government officials. They all appear to be completely ineffectual regardless of the roles they are assigned and there seems absolutely no penalty whatsoever for failure. Is there anybody with a backbone in government cos I’m struggling to identify any so far? Likewise business acumen, curiosity and common sense. Too many protecting their own interests I suspect. They need clearing out and some truly radical reform in the way government operates.
    It will be interesting to see Sir Wynns report at the end of this inquiry but I don’t hold out much hope of anything changing sadly nor of anybody at top level being held accountable.

  7. It is telling that the language used By current and recent witnesses gives the impression that the witnesss main focus throughout their time has been to count the number of angels on a pinhead , ie to focus on arcane processes which allows accountability to be lost in a more of process. At no time did Recaldin , Munby or Chisholm give the impression that people were involved and that lives were being left in the balance in their decisions. A shocking failure for whoch no one yet has paid an apprpriate penalty . Glib , process oriented without any humanity.

  8. Spot on Nick, I thought exactly the same. He kept referring to terrible PO decisions, especially about the group litigation. He knew the recusal application was the wrong thing to do and going to end in disaster but kept saying the PO “had to make their own decisions”. At this point I was shouting loudly at the TV – “Why? You’re their boss, call them in and tell them to stop the recusal and appeals and settle immediately”. This process went on and on with Chisholm, as usual only concerned with how things may look on his CV, determined to absolve himself of all responsibility. Nick, I may be being a bit harsh but I am a bit disappointed with the standard of questioning at the Inquiry, Mr Beer aside. They just listen to the answers and move on. Why didn’t they ask Chisholm why he didn’t intervene and why he allowed so much public money to be wasted? These civil servants keep going on about protecting public money (by holding back redress) yet allow the PO to carry on with extensive legal actions that they know are going to cost hundreds of millions of pounds and just do nothing. The questioning needs to be more incisive and ‘robust’ :). The more I see of people like Chisolm the more you realise what a brilliant and accurate program ‘Yes Minister’ was and how little has changed!

    1. This ‘Yes Minister’ programme is being played in actual time reality which has affected tens of thousands of people directly or indirectly, ( as there are over 4,000 claimants, their own family and extended family plus friends will easily run into tens of thousands of people ) and HMG’s first response is to learn lessons so this can never happen again, but the lives ruined of all victims is secondary and play as difficult as possible for ruining the PO Brand and making HMG look like dishonest and untrustworthy.
      My faith in the government is not in the same level of belief I had before my prosecution and now it is almost zero.

  9. The final paragraph, which contains the phrase
    “Alex doesn’t want us to do anything that might damage his career prospects”.
    Says it all, does it not?
    I will modify the phrase (making it impersonal) in order that it applies to most, if not all , civil servants.
    Civil servants do not want any organisation to do anything that might damage their career prospects.
    Absolutely disgraceful…….

  10. I nearly thought unbelievable but on reflection seeing some of the personalities involved and their self serving agendas maybe not. These sort of individuals get higher awards . The system stinks.

  11. When people who report to a supervisor are honoured, that honour is reflected back on that supervisor.

    When a person manifestly fails, so that failure should also be reflected on the supervisor who allowed it to happen.

    Paula Vennells honour was formally revoked in 2024 for bringing the honours system into disrepute. So how on earth was Chisholm honoured in 2023 for “Public Service”? He has equally brought the honours system into disrepute and so should also be stripped on his honour.

    And to prevent this abuse continuing, the government must seriously reform the honours system.

  12. So another useless and pointless civil servant cast in in the grotesque Perkins mould. Why do we taxpayers put up with it ?

    1. Yes, agreed. For some reason (boredom?) I went on YouTube who can show you/us how to answer questions when applying for civil servants jobs!

    2. This, sadly, is the reason organisations like the Post Office are structured the way they are: there is no responsibility for anything by anyone.

    3. His mother was Annabel, a daughter of the 2nd Baron Windlesham. Those who belong to such a social class would have little understanding of, and empathy for, the lives of the postmasters and postmistresses.

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