After yesterday’s parliamentary debate on Postmaster Compensation, former Subpostmaster Chris Head came up with his solutions for sorting everything out in a timely manner.
Chris is a member of the Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme, announced in 2022, by the (then) Postal Affairs Minister Paul Scully. For the last four years, however, Chris has been helping other Subpostmasters find their way around the mess surrounding the compensation schemes whilst working with Dan Neidle to expose their flaws.
Chris posted his thoughts on twitter yesterday, I have edited and reformatted them for clarity and published them, with his permission, below:
HSS ‘disaster’
“I respect Kevin Hollinrake in the way he answered questions in the House of Commons today. There are many issues that need to be resolved with regard to the 2,197 “settled” claims in the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS).
I’ve had 27 new emails since Tuesday from Subpostmasters who settled under that scheme who say they have not been settled fairly but agreed when they were either desperate or unaware (due to the design of the application form) what they were able to claim for.
They said the Post Office and the Business Department call it compensation but in some cases they have simply received their own money back and are aggrieved that the rhetoric is ‘they have been compensated’ because that is simply not the case.
The forms they completed have been forwarded to me in full and there is no mention of the word ‘compensation’ or ‘distress & inconvenience’ that these people may have suffered on top of their shortfalls. It is a disaster. These people cannot instruct lawyers because their shortfalls may have been £7k or £10k, but they certainly have not been compensated as is being said.
There is no provision for legal costs to assist these people to re-open these claims and no process in place to re-visit them. What do these people do? What about all the claims settled in that scheme in the earlier years where there was no 80% interim payment offered and therefore people took the offer because they simply couldn’t afford to dispute or lock into battle?
I’ve now worked on over 200 cases where people would not have been able to access legal support because there was no provision to do so (especially around 1000-1500 earlier applicants), the £1200 legal fees offer was only mentioned after a claim was made and an offer received.
OC and GLO schemes
In the Overturned Convictions (OC) scheme there is £600k on the table to ‘speed up’ settlements. It is forcing people to make completely unfair decisions because that is indeed a lot of money.
If they decline that offer and have a full assessment it takes far too long, the individual is starved of monies in the meantime regardless of what interims [claimants in the OC scheme are entitled to an immediate interim payment of £163,000] have been paid. And I am sure after speaking to people some would not have accepted this if they had access to additional interim amounts. This applies similar to the GLO scheme’s walk-away £75k offer.
Some Subpostmasters may want a full assessment like the case Helen Morgan MP raised for her constituent during the debate, but how long will the delay be? She awaits disclosure, forensic assessment, submits a claim, waits at least 40 working days, may receive a derisory offer, and then has to dispute it, all whilst being starved of money [see barrister Paul Marshall on the lack of interim payments available to those on the GLO and HSS schemes].
Chris’s solutions
GLO scheme:
ANYONE who has a claim below £100k pay it in full at its face value so as to not inflate low claims to the £75k level.
ANYONE with a claim substantially above £100k as per expert reports commit to a 25% interim payment of the total claim value with 21 days of claim submission, pending its full assessment.
OC scheme:
ANYONE with a claim £600k or less gets it paid immediately. Anyone who provides evidence of a claim substantially above £600k gets an interim payment at a minimum of £500-£600k (less already received payments) and a commitment to providing a full offer within 60 calendar days.
HSS:
Re-visit every settled claim putting in place a trusted advocate on this (I would volunteer) to assess those who applied without legal assistance or haven’t been fully compensated as promised due to many factors.
Those who are represented and have a quantified claim by experts receive 25% of its value as an interim amount and full settlement within 60 calendar days. No excuses.
Any delay to these timeframes or offered amounts to result in additional damages for distress/inconvenience and added trauma at a pre-agreed rate.”
Chris says his proposals are “fair, reasonable and achievable”.
The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
Leave a Reply