The above box appeared in the Post Office’s 2021/2022 Annual Report, which was not filed at Companies House until 24 February this year (and published a week later on the Post Office website). The box was part of a section of the annual report entitled “Remuneration Outcomes”. In this section, we were told the Post Office has scrapped its LTIP (Long Term Incentive Plan) and STIP (Short Term Incentive Plan) bonus schemes, (which saw former CEO Paula Vennells suffer a net salary reduction of a whopping £800 (to a measly £643,800) for her role in the scandal. More on this here).

The Post Office’s new executive bonus plan is called the Transformation Incentive Scheme. This pot of bonus money, generously provided by the taxpayer, would be awarded to the board and senior execs at the Post Office in return for meeting targets in four equally weighted areas.

One of those areas was headed “Inquiry”.

That’s right, Post Office executives were in line for bonuses based on how brilliant the Post Office had been at the Public Inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. Or in corporate speak:

“Delivery of all the required information and support for the Horizon Inquiry satisfying the requirements of Sir Wyn Williams [the retired judge who chairs the Inquiry]… and to ensure processes for Postmasters are addressed in line with recommendations from the inquiry. Any actions or plans must have been endorsed by the Inquiry and the Board.”

Venal

Did no one at the Post Office think it might be a bit crass to award themselves bonuses for belatedly coming clean about its role in literally taking money with menaces from innocent people? Especially as, behind closed doors, it has apparently been trying to argue those innocent Subpostmasters should walk away with as little compensation as possible, and taken so long making those arguments, 59 people have died waiting.

Not only did the Post Office set up this metric, it did so without informing the Inquiry.

And then, as you can see above, the Post Office declared it had achieved its target with the words: “All required evidence and information supplied on time, with confirmation from Sir Wyn Williams and team that Post Office’s performance supported and enabled the Inquiry to finish in line with expectations.”

False accounts

Unfortunately not a single word in the above statement is true.

Subpostmasters’ representatives at the Inquiry have already made comments about the Post Office’s late disclosure of documents. The Inquiry, last time I looked, had not finished (it’s now expected to go on into next year). Worst of all, the idea that Sir Wyn Williams and his team had confirmed anything was a straight-up fabrication.

A company’s Annual Report is a very important document. It is signed off by the Chairman and Chief Executive and filed at Companies House. It takes months to prepare, and requires considerable input from both the financial and legal side of the business. I don’t know if all board members have to read an annual report before it is published, but they should.

Did no one who wrote or went over a draft of the report spot the very, very basic error about the Inquiry being finished? Are any members of the board, senior leaders or lawyers watching the Inquiry, or reading media reports about it?

And what about the idea that “Sir Wyn Williams and team” have confirmed the Post Office have done a bang tidy job with regard to the Inquiry and should therefore fill their boots with public money? How did someone come to… just make that up?

Meaningless screed

The line was spotted by, or brought to the attention of, a diligent lawyer working for the Inquiry, Segun Jide. On 31 March, a month after the annual report was published, Mr Jide wrote, on Sir Wyn’s behalf, to the Post Office.

Mr Jide asked the Post Office lawyers, Herbert Smith Freehills, to: “explain the basis upon which the assertions were made that Sir Wyn Williams (“and team”) has confirmed that (a) the Post Office has supplied all required evidence and information to the Inquiry on time; and / or (b) that the Post Office’s performance supported and enabled the Inquiry to finish in line with expectations”

A week later, Herbert Smith Freehills responded that the Post Office (or POL, as it likes to call itself): “wishes to apologise to the Inquiry for setting a target that appeared to require the Chair’s participation without asking Sir Wyn for his agreement to that, and for reporting against that target by suggesting the Chair and his team had given input into a particular outcome when they had not.”

The report’s assertion that the Inquiry had finished was apparently some kind of drafting error, with the excuse that: “At the time the target was set (in December 2020), it was anticipated that the Inquiry may have substantially completed its work during the period covered by the Transformation Incentive Scheme, which is why the target as drafted anticipated the Inquiry having “finished in line with expectations” although POL accepts that this was not reviewed when it became apparent that the duration of the Inquiry would be longer.”

I’ve read this paragraph several times now and I still can’t understand it, nor how “finished in line with expectations” can be a target. Whose expectations? Why expectations? It’s just meaningless screed.

Media management

Herbert Smith Freehills went on to say: “POL understands that certain materials were reviewed by the then Group Chief People Officer, who relied on them in reporting to the Remuneration Committee that the target had been achieved… POL is trying to identify the documents she relied on. In the time available before writing, POL has not been able to locate this material.”

Maybe they’re in the shredder.

Yesterday, a full month after the Herbert Smith Freehills letter, the Post Office quietly appended a statement to its corporate web page hosting the 2021 – 2022 annual report. There was no press release, no fanfare, no ministerial statement, just a note recognising the falsehood, including the paragraph:

“We implied that Sir Wyn and his team had agreed to this sub-metric [what they’re now calling the bonus target] and had commented on the outcome. We wish to clarify that we did not ask for Sir Wyn’s agreement to the wording of this sub-metric and Sir Wyn and his team did not give any input into assessing whether it had been met. Post Office apologises unreservedly to Sir Wyn and the Inquiry team for this mistake and the way it was stated in the Annual Report for 2021-22. Chief Executive, Nick Read, has chosen to return the remuneration associated with this sub-metric. The Board of the Post Office is considering the position in respect of other senior leadership beneficiaries of this remuneration sub-metric.”

Burying bad news

As per the Herbert Smith Freehills letter dated 6 April, the Post Office knew it had made a serious mistake in its annual report. I asked a Post Office press officer why it took so long for the Post Office to publicly issue its correction, and why it chose to issue its correction on a Friday afternoon – not just any old Friday afternoon – but one in which the news agenda would be dominated by the local election results and then steamrollered by the Coronation.

The press officer told me that it was because the Post Office had spent some time trying to get to the bottom of how the falsehood came about and then it took some time to sort out the relevant wording of the apology and correction.

When I asked for the outcome of their investigation, the press officer told me that the Post Office still hadn’t got to the bottom of it, but I was assured the timing of the quiet correction, on the Friday afternoon before the Coronation, had nothing to do with trying to bury bad news. I politely told them I did not believe what they were saying.

When I asked if the Postal Affairs minister, Kevin Hollinrake, had been informed about the error, the Post Office press officer said: “I don’t know… I should imagine he is now!”

It is entirely possible that this correction would have passed the world by, had it not been for the Post Office Inquiry’s decision to publish the letter the Post Office CEO Nick Read wrote to Sir Wyn yesterday afternoon alongside a note from the Chair which sets out the story. In his letter of apology, Read says:

“I would like to personally apologise to you on behalf of Post Office for the incorrect statement in the company’s Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22, which implies that you and your team commented on the outcome of a remuneration metric targeted at senior leaders involved in the vital task of transformation within the Post Office. Despite the metric making express reference to the role of you and your team in assessing whether the metric was met, Post Office did not seek your or your team’s view on the proposed metric, far less your agreement to it. Moreover, at the point of assessing whether it had been met, despite the unambiguous wording of the metric, Post Office did not seek your or your team’s view. These were both unacceptable errors on our part. As a result I have chosen to return the money paid to me associated with this remuneration metric, and the Post Office Board is considering the position in respect of other senior leadership beneficiaries of this remuneration metric.”

Rotten to the core

I received the email from the Inquiry press team, which pointed journalists to Sir Wyn’s statement, yesterday at 5.41pm. I had to read the relevant documents twice, because first time I could not quite believe what I was seeing. Skimming through the twitter responses, it seems quite a few other people were astounded, too.

Ed Henry KC, who represents several Subpostmasters at the Inquiry, said:

“Rotten to the core. Profiteering from the Inquiry into the Consortium’s misfeasance, misgovernance & devastation of loyal workers. This must be raised in Parliament. How can senior management & board remain in place after this?”

Paul Gilbert, a legal expert who advises in-house lawyers on ethics said:

“What an utterly bankrupt culture. Irredeemably rotten. For someone to even have the idea of monetising the Inquiry is shocking, for everyone else to go along with it shows a vacuum of dignity and decency, and then to lie about it… My goodness me, what a contemptible way to be.”

I’ve asked the Post Office how much Read has given back, what time exactly his letter was sent to Sir Wyn and when, if at all, the Business Department was informed of the false statement in the Post Office’s accounts.

I’ve just been in contact with the Post Office minister, Kevin Hollinrake, who told me “I was made aware of this earlier today [my italics] and immediately asked for a full account of the circumstances, which will inform our approach.”

I’ve also asked the Business Department if they okayed the nature of the Post Office’s apology and correction and why, if they knew about the falsehood, they didn’t tell the minister. I am frankly very surprised something this serious was not announced in parliament, instead of being slipped out on a corporate web-page on a Friday afternoon before a Coronation.

There’s more. Please see Venal. Incompetent. Mendacious 2: What We Know Now, posted up on 8 May 2023.

---