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Post office operators yet to claim compensation of at least £600,000 relating to the Horizon IT scandal have not been chased up by officials because the government did not want to “harass” them with letters, it has emerged.
In a report criticising the speed and handling of payouts after the Post Office scandal, the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said the government is taking “insufficient action” identifying all the operators eligible to claim some of the £1.7bn being paid out across four compensation schemes.
Last year, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) opened a scheme to compensate 800 individuals who had their criminal convictions quashed by unprecedented legislation to exonerate those wrongly prosecuted for financial shortfalls using evidence from the Post Office’s flawed Horizon IT system.
Almost a year on, the PAC report found that only 42% have accepted a fixed and final sum of £600,000, and a third are yet to apply at all.
According to the latest official figures, just over £1bn has been paid out in compensation to more than 7,300 claimants across the four redress schemes to 2 June.
Around £560m has been paid out under the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS), while £245m in compensation has been awarded through the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS).
Sir Alan Bates, who led the 20-year campaign for justice for post office operators, was last month handed a “take it or leave it” compensation offer of less than half his original claim.
The DBT, which has only sent one letter to each post office operator eligible for the HCRS, admitted that it has not yet received any full claims from post office operator who do not want to accept the £600,000 deal.
When asked by the PAC why it was not following up letters that had not received a reply, the government said that it was “concerned that individuals receiving letters would feel harassed if they had a series of letters asking the same thing”.
“The Post Office Horizon scandal was one of the UK’s worst ever miscarriages of justice,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the PAC. “This committee would have hoped to have found government laser-focused on ensuring all those eligible were fully and fairly compensated for what happened.”
The DBT said it does not expect to receive any itemised claims for full assessment until the autumn because they are “complex [and] the spread of potential payments is far greater”.
The committee’s criticism was extended to one of the other main schemes, the HSS, which is run by the Post Office.
The committee was told that more than 18,500 letters were sent to post office operators eligible for the scheme, those who have suffered losses because of the Horizon system but were not convicted, but that the response rate was just 21%.
The Post Office has not sent any chaser letters to eligible post office operators, but said it plans to send 5,000 more letters this year to those not yet contacted.
“It is deeply dissatisfactory to find these schemes still moving far too slowly, with no government plans to track down the majority of potential claimants who may not yet be aware of their proper entitlements,” said Clifton-Brown.
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“It is entirely unacceptable that those affected by this scandal, some of whom have had to go through the courts to clear their names, are being forced to relitigate their cases a second time.”
A spokesperson for the Post Office said: “More than £1bn has been paid to victims of the Horizon IT scandal, and each week we are seeing more people receive their final settlements so they can begin to look beyond this painful chapter of their lives.
“However, more work remains to be done so that all victims receive full redress as quickly as possible and this is an absolute priority for the Post Office.”
The MPs also raised concerns about the financial backing of the Post Office, which is wholly owned by the government.
The government funds all of the Horizon compensation schemes and provides a “letter of support” to the Post Office, giving assurance that the DBT will deliver wider financial support.
The MPs raised concerns that the letter of support effectively gives the Post Office a “blank cheque”.
The DBT said that financial support is subject to approval from the Treasury and that the letter of support “deliberately falls short of being a financial guarantee”.
The Post Office made a pre-tax loss of £612m last year, while its debts have ballooned to more than the value of its assets, and is to close 115 loss-making branches, putting 2,000 jobs at risk.
