MPs have once again warned that the victims of the Horizon Post Office scandal are being let down by the lack of urgency in paying out compensation in a damning new report.
The Business and Trade Committee has demanded the Government take action to speed up the process of redress for the sub-postmasters, who were wrongfully accused of fraud and theft as a result of faulty IT software.
It comes after Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates hit out at the Prime Minister over slow compensation to sub-postmasters in an interview with The i Paper.
Campaigners who helped expose the Post Office scandal also said they would rather they had full compensation than recognition in the New Year Honours List.
Ministers were spurred into action following a public outcry in response to ITV’s dramatisation of the 20-year scandal Mr Bates versus the Post Office, but one year to the day since its airing, MPs have said too little has been done to compensate those affected.
Here The i Paper looks at how the victims are still being let down.
Despite widespread anger over the Post Office’s actions throughout the Horizon scandal, the organisation still has a role in administering the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS).
The report states that the Post Office has maintained its role despite the Committee “repeatedly expressing concern” at Post Office Ltd’s involvement. “This is because at the height of the Horizon scandal the Post Office acted as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ when pursuing sub-postmasters”, it adds.
The document continues that despite assurances that the Government would administer the scheme, the Post Office still has a role despite its interim chair Nigel Railton telling the committee it should be excluded.
Slow payments
By far the biggest issue is, of course, the slow payments being handed out to the victims, despite having to wait years already for compensation.
According to the Committee, the independent panel set up to process the claims will take another 18 months to administer all those outstanding. This is not including the thousands more claims that are anticipated to be submitted after the Post Office Ltd wrote to 16,000 sub-postmasters, which will mean further delays. The report states: “It is a major concern that the already backlogged Independent Panel may now face thousands of new cases.”
The Committee has called for the appeals panel to be beefed up in order for it to meet full time rather than twice a week to process the claims more swiftly.
Just £499 million of the budgeted £1.8 billion has been paid out so far, while 14 per cent of those who had applied to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) before the original 2020 deadline had still not settled their claims.
The committee has previously called for the Government to introduce legally binding timeframes, with financial penalties paid to victims if those targets are not met. But the previous government rejected that suggestion in May, saying it would have “no positive effect” on speeding up claims and “might unjustly penalise solicitors for issues out of their control”.
Poor design of scheme
The Committee heard evidence when looking into the Horizon scandal from solicitor Dr Nigel Hudgell, who described HSS as the “worst of the redress schemes” adding that he had a number of “fundamental” concerns about the process. The “schemes are so poorly designed that the application process is akin to a second trial for victims,” the Committee argued.
It has prompted the Committee to recommend that any claims that have to be resubmitted go through an external mediation process, rather than having to navigate the laborious HSS process each time, while it also called for assessors to give claimants “the benefit of the doubt” more often.
The Government and the Post Office have employed the services of City law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, whose involvement in overseeing the scheme has been heavily criticised by ministers, with former business minister Kevin Hollinrake describing its continued role as “unthinkable”.
The company has received £82 million in fees for work on the HSS and overturned convictions schemes, while overall legal fees have made up £136 million of the cost of administering the Post Office-led schemes since 2020 – 27 per cent of the actual compensation paid out. Committee chair Liam Byrne said the legal costs were “out of control”.
…but no legal advice for claimants
Despite one side having the legal services of a corporate law firm, claimants have no such legal advice up front despite the claims process being described as being “very complex”.
According to the Committee’s report, “the complex questionnaire that acts as the gateway to the scheme”, which it said “acts against them receiving the full redress they are due”. Claimants that have legal advice from the start see their compensation offers double, the report adds.
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