Thanks,so the other charges are minor points within the main ones?
Yep.
As someone who works in an auditor role relating to large multi-national corporations I find the whole reason the PL chose to headline with the 115 'symptoms' rather than the 5 'root-causes' really odd.
Usually during an investigation or audit field work you would identify the issues at the coal face, so in this case the 115 items. You would then sit down to agree the 'so what?' for those items and assess the materiality (seriousness) of each, they would then be grouped where required to avoid double counting of both the number and seriousness of the items. This process would ultimately result in an agreed set of themed 'actual' Issues, in this case the 5 items, which would remove any noise and help everyone focus on what needs escalating, reporting, fixing etc.
As above, the reason for this is to avoid sensationalism and not to over estimate the seriousness of the collective findings. In all instances the items identified would not be reported as official gaps/breaches until such point they were validated and agreed by all stakeholders.
Only after this point would the report containing the findings be issued, the headlines would be the 5 items, with traceability back to the 115 items for those who need it.
Some will say that this isn't an audit and as such wouldn't align to this methodology. I would disagree, this should be very much treated as a financial audit rather than the US type criminal lawsuit it has turned into.
As such, the communication of the 115 items without any real desire from the PL to also communicate the relative seriousness of each item to the general public is extremely questionable, as Joe Bloggs will likely just assume that each item is as equally serious, which absolutely will not be the case.
This all leads to asking the question, why were the comms managed like this from the PL? Well we can all take our own guesses, however it does seem that from the very start of the proceedings they wanted to plant the seed that City are rotten to the core, and in the event the case falls apart they are hoping that some mud sticks.
