Introduction
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In this Part of my report, I set out a chronology of events.
The aim of this chronology is to describe the information, exchanges, meetings and discussions which occurred during the period covered by this report.
The account given in this Part of my report has been derived from the policy and operational files of the bodies whose actions were under investigation, as well as from the working documents, email accounts, and other electronic records of some of the officials, actuaries, and legal advisers who were involved in the prudential regulation of the Society during the relevant period.
The chronology does not include every event of potential relevance to the subject matter of this report. It is focused only on the information that those involved in the prudential regulation of the Society had before them at the relevant time or on the actions of those regulators during the period covered by this report.
Thus, while we have reviewed the internal papers of the Society, of the auditors of the Society, and of a range of other relevant parties (including the administrators of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme), this material is only included within the chronology where we have established conclusively that it was before those undertaking the prudential regulation of the Society, either by being provided to them or being known by them through other means.
There are three other stylistic matters which the reader should bear in mind. These are:
- that, while every effort has been made to ensure that the language cited from documents or discussions remains as close to the original as is possible, certain editorial or linguistic changes have had to be made on occasion for the sake of clarity. I am satisfied that these minor changes do not detract from the accuracy of the account provided;
- that, except where changes have had to be made to ensure clarity, we have retained within direct quotations the acronyms used by others. The reader is referred to the Glossary and List of Acronyms set out in Part 1 of this report, if any of those acronyms are unclear; and
- that notes have been included within a number of the entries set out within the chronology. Those notes provide further explanation of the subject matter of the relevant entry or entries and/or give cross-references to other entries on the same subject and/or record subsequent submissions made to me in respect of the content of those entries. For the avoidance of doubt, it is not suggested by including notes in this fashion that the subject matter or content of those notes was known to the relevant officials and/or advisers at the time.
There are two final important considerations which should be borne in mind by the reader concerning the content of this Part of my report.
The first is that most of the material which is cited within this chronology was never intended to be placed in the public domain, with much of it being of the nature of contributions to a drafting process or to emerging thinking.
While I have included everything that I consider to be relevant in order to show the full consideration that was given at the time of the matters within the terms of reference for the investigation, the reader should bear in mind that draft documents or opinions do not reflect the concluded views of those writing those documents or expressing those opinions.
No greater reliance on this material should therefore be placed than that intended by its inclusion within this chronology – namely, as part of a series of events, discussions, and other actions relevant to the prudential regulation of the Society.
Finally, the chronology of events contains numerous references to what could be seen as strong or controversial opinions held by those involved in the prudential regulation of the Society about other people.
Those references, again, were not intended to have a wider circulation nor, often, were those who were the subject of the views expressed given any notice at the time that such opinions were held about them and their actions.
Thus, the reader should bear in mind that those holding the opinions that were expressed and are recounted in this report did not have the benefit of any response to them from those affected, which might have informed their view or led to those opinions being qualified or changed.
Such opinions as are set out within this chronology cannot therefore be taken to be a factually accurate record of or concluded judgement about the actions or qualities of those other persons.
