Post Office compensation schemes ‘a patchwork quilt with holes in it’
An interim report covering the three compensation schemes was published on Monday.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The chairman of the inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has called for legislative change to resolve issues with what he described as “a patchwork quilt of compensation schemes… with some holes in it”.
Just short of £100 million has been paid out so far by the Post Office and the Government to subpostmasters affected by the scandal.
Inquiry chairman Sir Wyn Williams said his “strongly-held view” is that the scheme administrators will be “unable to deliver compensation payments to all applicants” by the deadline previously set – August 7 2024.
Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted based on information from the accounting system, which saw workers wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.
However, in December 2019 a High Court judge ruled that the system contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were in fact caused by it.
Since then many subpostmasters have had criminal convictions overturned.
On Monday, Sir Wyn issued eight recommendations in an attempt to ensure “full and fair” compensation is paid to those affected by the scandal.
He said: “The evidence upon me hasn’t changed. It hasn’t lessened to a degree.
“Many hundreds of people suffered disastrous consequences by reason of the misuse of data from Horizon, and thousands more suffered very significantly.”
As of April 6 2023, the Post Office had paid out more than £80 million across the Historical Shortfall Scheme and the Overturned Historic Convictions Scheme.
The Government paid out an additional £19 million in interim compensation under the Group Litigation Scheme by the same date.