A majority of serving Subpostmasters have told the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal that they are still getting unexplained discrepancies generated by the Post Office’s Horizon IT system.

Over the last twelve months, 57% of Subpostmasters told a wide-ranging independent survey that they have recorded unexplained discrepancies in their accounts. A whopping 92% have also experienced glitches, including screen freezes (70%) or loss of connection (68%). Two thirds of respondents say these problems occur on a monthly basis, or more frequently.

Many of the unexplained discrepancies relate to unexplained, missing or double-entry transactions. Evidence from the Horizon IT system was used to falsely prosecute Subpostmasters between 2000 and 2015. The system (and the way its figures were interpreted) were the cause of the Post Office scandal. The Post Office has stopped prosecuting people, but it seems the glitches and discrepancies haven’t gone away.

The survey, commissioned by the Inquiry and sworn into evidence at the Inquiry today, also reveals that 72% of serving Subpostmasters feel undervalued by the Post Office and think the Post Office board doesn’t listen them (60%) or understand their concerns (74%).

More than half of serving Subpostmasters feel they are operating under unfair contracts with a third of respondents calling the contract “very unfair”. Only two-thirds of Subpostmasters remember receiving a contract before (or after) they started working as Subpostmasters and only 15% say they have been sent a comprehensive document detailing their role and responsibilities since the Bates v Post Office Common Issues judgment was handed down in March 2019.

The survey has been uploaded to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry website. I contacted the Post Office for comment. They gave me this statement:

“We are focused on supporting the Inquiry to reach its independent conclusions. Hearing directly from former and current postmasters is an important part of this work. We are determined to learn lessons from the past and improve the organisation for our postmasters and the 10 million customers who rely on us each week. The ongoing Public Inquiry is an important way for us to achieve these aims and we will not be commenting outside of the Inquiry at this time.”  

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A survey was also sent to applicants to the largest redress scheme, initially known as the Historical Shortfall Scheme, now known as the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS). This is for people who were outside the Bates v Post Office group litigation who had not been prosecuted. It covered those who had been suspended or sacked over discrepancies in their accounts, or forced to hand over money whilst still serving in order to keep their jobs.

A third of applicants to the HSS were “very dissatisfied” with the scheme with 78% saying they had not been contacted by an HSS case assessor. Of those who were contacted, nearly half were “dissatisfied” with how well-informed they were kept throughout the application process. Of those who received offers of financial redress 59% reported “high dissatisfaction” with the amount, with 49% reporting dissatisfaction with the “amount of information provided about how the outcome was determined”.

The law firm Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) are assisting with the administration of the HSS (though they do not decide on the amount of compensation offered or paid to individual sub-postmasters). The fees they have been generating from this wheeze are costing the taxpayer a small fortune. I have contacted them for comment.

You can watch the author of the survey report – Gavin Ellison from YouGov – giving evidence at the Inquiry here.

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