Government pledges more independence for Post Office claims

A new independent review process will open next week for former postmasters who have previously accepted fixed sum offers of compensation through the Horizon Shortfalls Scheme and believe their claims were undervalued.

The Post Office and the government have been criticised in the past for creating an overly legalistic claims process, with lawyers demanding proof of losses and harm that are based on events which happened decades ago. In some cases, postmasters accused of theft were removed from their branches with no access to files, meaning they have not had the necessary documents available.

More than 700 people were wrongly convicted based on evidence from the flawed Horizon IT system, with thousands more affected by the scandal.

As well as Horizon, faults with the Capture system used before the year 2000 have been reported and it has emerged that postmasters using that system were similarly accused where it appeared that money had gone missing.

The Capture Redress Scheme will close to new applications on 31 March 2027 and has so far paid more than £9 million to claimants.

As of 30 September, around £1.73bn has been paid to more than 14,000 claimants for Horizon redress schemes, with 87% of claims received now settled.

Post Office minister Kate Dearden MP said: ‘We must never lose sight of the suffering caused by the Horizon and Capture scandals. Behind every pound of compensation paid is a person whose life has been turned upside down by the scandal. We remain unwavering in our commitment to provide fair, comprehensive and timely redress to all those affected and ensure that a scandal like this never happens again.’

Simon Goldberg, whose firm Simons Muirhead Burton LLP is representing former postmaster Lee Castleton in his compensation claim, welcomed the proactive steps taken by the government but said the process is still taking too long. He added that figures for the Capture redress were ‘unconscionably low’.

Goldberg added: ‘The most complex claims continue to be contested tooth and claw, often on highly technical legal points, and the government statement’s use of the past tense is telling: “the scandals caused profound harm to postmasters”, as if everything was in the past. The harm is far from over - it is real, and present, and being exacerbated on a daily basis.’