Government considering taking over Horizon shortfall scheme from Post Office

The Government is considering taking over responsibility from the Post Office for redress schemes for subpostmasters impacted by the Horizon scandal, a minister has said.

Business minister Gareth Thomas gave a statement to MPs where he said that £79 million has been paid to 232 people from the Horizon convictions redress scheme, but that the Government had “concerns” about the Post Office’s ability to deliver the Horizon shortfall scheme and the overturned conviction scheme.

The Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme was launched by the Government to enable people wrongly convicted of a crime because of the Horizon IT system used by the Post Office to apply for financial redress.

The Horizon shortfall scheme allows subpostmasters to apply either for a £75,000 Fixed Sum Award or to have their application fully assessed, and is run by the Post Office.

The overturned conviction scheme is also run by the Post Office and is eligible for anyone whose Horizon-related conviction has been overturned by the courts.

Mr Thomas outlined a number of areas the Government was considering amending some parts of the redress system as there are still “complex cases to resolve”.

He said: “There are still concerns about the responsibility of the Post Office to deliver the Horizon shortfall scheme and the overturned conviction scheme.

“The Government is considering the merits of my department taking over this responsibility, but the benefits of such a move must clearly outweigh the disruption that could potentially be caused.

“We are carefully considering what, if any, intervention we may take.”

He earlier said: “We are looking again at the arguments for providing additional redress to members of postmasters’ families who were affected by the scandal, and to the employees of postmasters. I will report back to the House on that in due course.

“The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board recommended an appeals process independent of the Post Office and Government for the Horizon short fall scheme, they recommended that it be established, and we accepted that recommendation in September.

“We are in the process of assembling a team of independent, external lawyers to help deliver the appeals process. We expect that contract to be awarded in January, and I will be able to provide a further update on the appeals process early in the new year.”

Mr Thomas also said parts of the process need to be sped up.

He said: “While the progress we have made is positive, we know there are still complex cases to resolve, and we also need to speed up other parts of the redress process.

“There are many postmasters who are still to be compensated or to have their cases reconsidered.

“I am very conscious that for the victims of the Horizon scandal, justice delayed is justice denied; that our responsibility in Government is to work to make the compensation process as effective as possible.”

Yesterday the Government recognised that Capture, the system which came before Horizon, could have created accounting shortfalls for subpostmasters who used it.

Capture was rolled out in Post Office branches in 1992, before being replaced by Fujitsu’s Horizon software in 1999.

The Post Office-Horizon scandal saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongfully convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting over more than a decade.

Many lost their livelihoods, their life savings, their reputations and even went to jail.

Mr Thomas said the Government faces “a significant challenge” in terms of the amount of evidence that is available on those impacted by Capture.

He said: “There is, for example, no central record that has been found as yet of the number of Capture users and indeed, who they were. We are nevertheless going to be working to design a redress scheme.”