Sarah Munby is a self-confessed “fan”; Minister for the Civil Service
Sarah Munby, a senior civil servant, has been embroiled in a bitter row between a former postmaster general and the government over the Horizon scandal.
Henry Staunton claims he was told about it by the government chief employee who «limped to the polls» when he raised concerns about a £160m hole in the business's finances last year.
So who is Ms Munby and what exactly does she allegedly have ? said, and what does this mean for the crisis?
Who is Sarah Munby?
With two master's degrees and five years' experience in Whitehall, Ms Munby is an avowed public service fanatic.
She has previously spoken about the importance of “rolling the punches” as a leader and said that “communication is everything,” emphasizing the need for “honest and transparent information sharing.”
Now a senior official in the new Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Ms Munby got her first civil service job back in 2003, working as an economist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
< p>She then left Whitehall for 15 years to work at consultancy Mckinsey, where she led strategy and corporate finance in the UK and Ireland, before returning to become director-general of the Department of Business and Commerce and then the Department of Business. , energy and industrial strategy.In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, she was quickly promoted to permanent secretary (the most senior position in the department), where she «fondly» recalled imagining that «the feeling of uncertainty was temporary — Covid-19 would recede, I would climb under the table and everything would 'go back to normal.'»
But she noted: «The truth is that there have never been 'normal times' and there probably never will be.
When her department was split into three in February 2023, Ms Munby took on a major role at DSIT.
In an interview with Civil Service World last June, she said she was drawn to Whitehall by “the impact: the scale and scope of the issues we have to work on.”
She said she enjoyed the opportunity to work on “things.” , which happen once every five times in a lifetime,” including the government’s “net zero” strategy, which she described as “world-changing” work. “It feels like the future is in your hands,” she added.
She also helped support households during the energy crisis caused by the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine.
«Any of these events you'll look back on and say, 'Wow, that was a career highlight,'» she said. she.
«To be able to just do a sequence, one after the other, it's just… I'm a fan of the whole thing. I think the privilege and opportunity is completely unparalleled.»
In October 2021, Ms Munby said: «Even though we all talk about strategy, leadership is also about flexibility.»
“We all need to be able to roll with the punches and even have fun doing it. Short-term challenges can be exciting (especially if you, like me, really enjoy being a little adrenaline pumped), but when we're faced with ongoing challenges and unpredictability, it can become tiring and stressful.”
Who Is It? Henry Staunton, former postmaster?
Mr Staunton stepped down as chairman of the Post Office in January after just over a year in the post amid ongoing tensions following the Horizon scandal.
He was tasked with leading the board as the business endures the fallout from its biggest legal case. errors in the UK.
He was appointed to the role in December 2022, after nine years as chairman of WH Smith.
He has also sat on the boards of ITN, BSkyB, Ladbrokes and Standard Bank
What did Sarah do? Munby?
Ms Munby is accused of suggesting Mr Staunton should «bumble along» to the next election rather than face a crisis by facing the Post Office's finances because «politicians don't necessarily like to face reality».
Mr Staunton claimed that after his first meeting with Ms Munby on January 5 last year, he wrote a note saying she told him “now is not the time to deal with long-term issues.”
He sent it by email. The next day, The Times reported, he sent a copy to Nick Reed, the post office manager.
He is said to have discovered the note in his personal emails on Tuesday and then shared it. it's with the newspaper.
The purported note highlighted that the board had identified a shortfall of £160 million as of September 2022 and that «there was the potential for significant reductions in the number of post offices if funding [from the government] was not [requested].»
< p>It said: “Sarah sympathized with all of the above. She understood the “huge commercial challenge” and the “seriousness” of the financial situation. She called “all the options unattractive.” However, “politicians don’t necessarily like to confront reality.” This is especially true when there was no obvious “path to profitability.”
“She said we need to know that in the run-up to the election there was no desire to rip off the Band-Aid.” «Now was not the time to deal with long-term problems. We needed a plan to hobble through to the election.»
Although extracts show Ms Munby was talking mainly about the Post Office's finances, Mr Staunton said compensation payments and Horizon system replacement were the two biggest areas in which the company could vary its costs.
Ms Munby denies Mr Staunton's allegations.
What happens next?
The development reignites the row surrounding Mr Staunton's interview with the Sunday Times, in which he claimed he had been told to withhold compensation payments to victims of the Horizon scandal to improve the Tories' electoral prospects.
Former Post Office Boss said, that he was told to “limp into the election” to save the government money.
“It wasn’t a move against the postmaster, it was just financial issues,” he told the newspaper.
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His claims drew criticism from Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, who said the allegations were «completely false».
Her department then published Ms Munby's letter to Mr Staunton following his appointment as chairman of the Post Office. which said it had identified three goals, including «reaching a settlement with the plaintiffs» in the Horizon scandal.
The new memo casts doubt on Ms Badenoch's denial of her allegations.
Source in government told The Times: “The Post Office's long-standing financial problems are well known and do not include the postmaster's pay, which is entirely funded by the government. Henry Staunton is either confused or deliberately confusing the two issues.
“Even if we trust the veracity of the note he wrote himself, and little can be assumed given the false accusations he made about his original interview It is time for Secretary of State Henry Staunton to admit that his Sunday interview was a misrepresentation of his conversations with ministers and officials, and to apologize to the government and postmasters.»
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