Recommendation 22

The Horizon IT system used by sub postmasters and subpostmistresses erroneously recorded shortfalls of cash in local Post Office branches over a 20-year period. The Post Office blamed many of the shortfalls on sub postmasters and sub postmistresses, despite it being the Horizon IT system was at fault. Post Office took action to recover the losses from staff and in some cases, criminal prosecutions were pursued and people were wrongly convicted. Following the scandal, the Post Office committed to make payments to current and former postmasters to compensate those who had either wrongly been convicted of fraud, theft or false accounting (Overturned Historical Convictions) or had been affected by financial discrepancies related to previous versions of the Horizon IT system (Historical Shortfall Scheme). The Post Office is unable to fund the full amount of compensation and maintain levels of service provision and so the Department agreed to provide funding to the Post Office to support the compensation payments to be made. At 31 March 2022, the Department’s liability was estimated to be £579 million.46