It’s shameful that preening Davos delegates ignored the Post Office scandal

As they head for Zurich airport or catch some last-minute skiing, the delegates at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos can doubtless congratulate themselves on a productive few days in the Alps.

They gained some useful business leads, touched base with old pals, and took away potential useful subjects for future management think-ins and those flash dinner parties where they like to shine. Of course, there’s the matter of the expenses to deal with. They were higher than ever this year, positively stratospheric, but accounts will just have to wear them. It’s Davos after all, there is a price to be paid.

Coming down the mountain, emerging from the clouds, they can be forgiven for supposing they’re gods, in charge, firmly across everything. While they were earnestly discussing and clinking glasses, a drama was unfolding in Britain. If there’s one topic that should have been high on the Swiss agenda for dissection it should have been the Post Office scandal.

It ought to have been there for all sorts of reasons. The very fact it took a TV treatment to highlight a shocking affair that had been meandering along for years was awful enough. Doubtless there are those in PR, some at Davos, who would regard such a long fuse as a “result”, that “parking” such an embarrassing episode, to borrow the words they use, was some sort of victory.

Likewise, Fujitsu. The Japanese multinational, whose faulty accounting software lay at the heart of the debacle, causing the Post Office operators to be accused and convicted wrongly of fraud, managed to reach this week without publicly apologising. This, for their technology that was first found to be error prone as far back as 1995 and was subject to sustained complaints from 2000 onwards.

Yet, in the twisted way these things are viewed, there are some who credit Fujitsu with saying “sorry” – even if it is decades late. Their argument is that getting anyone to issue an apology for anything these days is nigh impossible.

Look at Sir Ed Davey. The Liberal Democrat chief who was the minister in the coalition government responsible for the Post Office at a period when claims of injustice first aired and ignored the pleas, would rather be branded a hypocrite than say sorry. Why hypocrite? Because this is the same Davey who 34 times has called for resignations by public figures and for their acceptance of responsibility.

Davey is a Very Important Person, the government department is critical, Fujitsu is a global brand, the Post Office is a historic institution, and the police are major players as well. Somewhere in this lot of egos and self-preening, lie the subpostmasters. They’re lost, the ones who do not count, who are not to be believed, whose lives can be ruined with impunity.

For, while the official inquiry into the saga treads its inevitably slow path and other bodies hold their reviews, there is one stark lesson to be drawn: little people matter.

It should have been ringing across the Alpine air this week. More than that, when they first said they had done nothing wrong, those postal workers should have been listened to and taken seriously.

This is what lies at the heart of the Post Office tragedy (and if we want to split hairs, it was a tragedy – people died), the disconnect between those at the top and those at the bottom.

Every business, every organisation, every chieftain and wannabe chieftain, should take heed. It’s a mindset, endemic, that requires changing.

They see evidence of it but then are dismissive. This is when they conduct those surveys asking about trust and they find there is little or none. They’re the most brilliant marketing brains on Earth, in touch with the zeitgeist, claiming to know what people are thinking, what makes them tick, how to reach them. Yet, they’re not trusted.

Partly, they reassure themselves, it’s down to envy. Those at the summit earn a lot, people are bound to be jealous. But that salary and bonus package? It’s justified. They’re worth it.

Were delegates in Switzerland bothered that FTSE 100 bosses earn the UK average salary in three days? Not a bit. But the very fact it’s raised just goes to show how bitter and misunderstanding folk can be.

You see it everywhere. From the myriad recorded messages that deal with customer queries. Are they designed to put off the caller or to resolve their issue? From the technocrat’s speech that’s intended to sound meaningful but isn’t at all. From the requisite form-filling and process that makes a victim seem like an offender. From the City’s contemptuous disregard for “other people’s money”.

While they preened themselves in Davos as the Post Office catastrophe continued to be pored over, another business found itself in the crosshairs. Managers at Avanti, the West Coast Main Line operator, were on the wrong end of a leak showing they joked about receiving “free money” from government and performance-related payments being “too good to be true”.

For those who have never experienced Avanti, its service is unreliable, trains can be cancelled without notice, carriages are often uncomfortably packed, buffets are frequently shut or without power – on it goes, for what is meant to be a flagship link between London and Glasgow, Birmingham. Manchester, and Liverpool. Avanti manages the very artery of the country and it’s sclerotic.

The firm is supported by the Treasury and Department of Transport with taxpayers’ cash but one slide from the leaked internal presentation was entitled “Roll-up, roll-up get your free money here!”

Avanti confirmed the contents of the presentation but described it as “regrettable”.

Lovely word, regrettable. Davey used it as well. He was asked 10 times in an interview to say “sorry”. Instead, Davey said he “deeply regrets” that he was lied to and “regrets” not asking tougher questions.

It’s the lesson from the Post Office disaster, for those in charge to take their customers, clients, employees, suppliers, whistleblowers, ordinary people seriously, to treat them properly. It’s the lesson from countless other messes. But it is never learned.