{"id":9535,"date":"2023-06-03T19:41:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T18:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxpolicy.org.uk\/?p=9535"},"modified":"2023-06-26T14:11:34","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T13:11:34","slug":"postoffice4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heacham.neidles.com\/2023\/06\/03\/postoffice4\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight reasons why the Post Office compensation scheme is a scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I keep going back to this Daily Mail story<\/a>. And, in particular:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mr<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How could that happen? How did Mr Duff end up with only \u00a38,000? Indeed how come one postmaster applied for only \u00a315.75 compensation? I didn’t forget to add “thousand” or “million” – the Post Office revealed to me1<\/a><\/sup>See below, and the Post Office’s response to allegation number 2<\/span> that they received one application for \u00a315.75 compensation. That indicates a very serious problem with the application process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article answers that question. Our conclusion: the Post Office has adopted a strategy to minimise compensation for the worst miscarriage of justice in British history. It does that by minimising the initial claim postmasters are making. The Post Office can then point to all the procedures in place to ensure claims are handled fairly – but the unfairness happened right at the start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how.<\/p>\n\n\n

The background<\/h2>\n\n\n

Between 2000 and 20172<\/a><\/sup>I have previously written that this was between 2000 and 2013, but I have now spoken to postmasters who faced false allegations of theft as late as 2017<\/span>, the Post Office falsely accused thousands of postmasters of theft<\/a>. Some went to prison. Many had their assets seized and their reputations shredded. Marriages and livelihoods were destroyed, and at least 61 have now died<\/a>, never receiving an apology or recompense. These prosecutions were on the basis of financial discrepancies reported by a computer accounting system called Horizon. The Post Office knew from the start that there were serious problems with the Horizon system<\/a>, but covered it up, and proceeded with aggressive prosecutions<\/a> based on unreliable data. It\u2019s beyond shocking, and there should be criminal prosecutions of those responsible<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post Office then spent years fighting compensation claims in the courts, using every trick in the book to draw things out as long as possible – even a completely meritless application for a judge to recuse himself<\/a> on the basis he was biased, which the Court of Appeal described <\/a>as “without substance”, “fatally flawed” and “absurd”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, finally – ten years after the Post Office almost certainly knew 3<\/a><\/sup>Although important people at the Post Office surely knew well before 2013, albeit that the details of “who knew what when” remain unclear<\/span> that it had wronged these people, it is paying compensation – but in a way that guarantees the wronged postmasters receive derisory sums. This article focuses on the “historical shortfall scheme” (HSS), which compensates postmasters who were not actually convicted of theft, but who were accused of theft, lost their jobs, threatened with prosecution, and forced to repay cash “shortfalls” which in fact were entirely fictitious. There are about 2,500 HSS claims. The average settlement payment so far is only \u00a332,0004<\/a><\/sup>The HSS scheme doesn’t cover the postmasters who were wrongly convicted<\/a>, or the 555 postmasters<\/a> who claimed under the group litigation order (GLO) – these two groups overlap, but there are likely others who haven’t claimed under any scheme. So the total number of affected postmasters is unknown, but certainly over 3,000<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post Office say this about the HSS claim process:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I would invite anyone to read the below and then return to this paragraph, and decide for themselves how “simple and user friendly” the scheme is, and how fair and reasonable it is for the Post Office to not cover the legal costs of applying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are eight elements of the HSS scheme that in my view amount to a strategy to minimise the initial HSS claims. In other circumstances, I would willingly accept that this was a series of good faith mistakes; but given the history here, I don’t think we can assume good faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the eight:<\/p>\n\n\n