Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 15
11th Report - Excess votes 2023-24
Published 26 Feb 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Excess votes 2023-24 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Secretary of State is the sole shareholder in Post Office Limited, whose principal objective is to provide retail post office services through a national network of branches. Post Office Limited will make payments to postmasters and former postmasters in four key schemes to compensate: • those who had been wrongly convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting, later overturned by the court (compensation for Overturned Convictions); • those who were affected by financial discrepancies related to previous versions of Post Office’s Horizon IT system (the Horizon Shortfall Scheme); • postmasters who were not previously paid during a period of suspension (Suspension Remuneration Review); and • those who were impacted by operational and policy issues separate to the Horizon schemes (Post Office Process Review Compensation).
From: Public Accounts Committee, 11th Report - Excess votes 2023-24 (HC 719), 26 February 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with each of the Committee's recommendations on the 2023-24 excesses and states that each has been implemented, in March 2025.
- On the excesses at the Electoral Commission, Ofqual and the Department for Business and Trade, the excess votes were included in the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2025, which "received Royal Assent on 11 March 2025".
- The Electoral Commission attributes its overspend to an error in a technical accounting judgement relating to IFRS 16 on new leases, and says it has increased finance team capacity, updated processes and provided additional training.
- On IFRS 16 guidance, HM Treasury says it linked guidance in the 2025-26 Main Estimates technical paper, and has "committed" to its Financial Reporting Advisory Board that it will do a post implementation review of IFRS 16 for central government.
- On the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, the Department for Business and Trade says evidence supporting the reasonableness of cost estimates "will be disclosed as part of the department's annual report and accounts (ARA) for 2024-25", and notes "considerable uncertainty" over total costs.