Business
Most sub-postmasters ‘still reporting issues with Horizon’ – as more than half have ‘unexplained discrepancies’
Most sub-postmasters are still reporting issues with the Horizon IT system that led to hundreds being wrongly convicted, a survey suggests.
An inquiry into the Post Office’s Horizon accounting software, and the associated prosecution of 700 sub-postmasters for theft and false accounting, is taking place to establish a clear account of the implementation and failure of the Fujitsu-created computer program.
The inquiry carried out a survey via polling company YouGov of more than 1,000 current Post Office operators and victims of the scandal to assess how the state-owned company is operating.
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The vast majority of sub-postmasters operating Post Offices (92%) reported “some form of issue” with Horizon in the last year.
More than half (57%) said they had experienced unexplained discrepancies, with 19% reporting unexplained transactions and 14% experiencing missing transactions.
When resolving those discrepancies, more were dissatisfied (48%) than satisfied (19%).
It’s five years since the Post Office apologised to sub-postmaster victims who were wrongly told they owed money to the organisation. Many lost homes, became ill, racked up significant debts and some died by suicide.
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The discontent, however, stretched beyond Horizon issues.
The survey found that only 15% of respondents had received a full copy of their contract from the Post Office, setting out their roles and responsibilities. More than half felt their contract terms were unfair, while one in three believed they were very unfair.
The majority also said the Post Office was not professionally managed, trustworthy, learning lessons from the past, and a good place to work.
Nearly half fund redress scheme hard to understand
Many applicants to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) are unhappy, the survey also found. HSS was set up to provide redress to those who were forced to make up for the imaginary financial shortfalls Horizon generated.
Nearly half of scheme applicants were dissatisfied, with one in three “very dissatisfied” and 15% “fairly dissatisfied”.
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Underlying the unhappiness were problems with understanding the scheme, the speed with which applications were processed, communication from administrators, transparency and compensation fairness.
While a fifth of respondents found the scheme easy to understand, 29% said it was “quite hard” and 19% reported it was “very hard” to understand.
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It comes as campaigner Sir Alan Bates blamed government “flimflam artists” for dragging out financial redress for victims.
HSS is just one of the four schemes aiming to provide redress to those who suffered as a result of Horizon.
Recently announced is the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS) for sub-postmasters whose convictions were not quashed by the courts but were automatically overturned by the previous government’s Post Office Offences Act.
For those who were part of the 2019 legal case that was brought by Sir Alan, there’s the Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme.
People who had been wrongly convicted and had the conviction overturned by the courts can apply for the Overturned Convictions Scheme.