Fund legal advice for HSS claimants before scheme choice
Post Office Horizon Inquiry · Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry: Final Report · Issued 8 July 2025 · Addressed to: Department for Business and Trade
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
All claimants in HSS shall be entitled to obtain legal advice funded by the Department prior to choosing between accepting the Fixed Sum Offer or seeking financial redress which is assessed. The remuneration for such advice shall be in accordance with a scale of fees commensurate with the scale which is operative in GLOS.
Post Office Horizon Inquiry, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry: Final Report · 8 Jul 2025 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The Department for Business and Trade broadly accepted this recommendation on 9 October 2025, but stated that funded legal advice would be provided at the appeal permission stage rather than upfront as recommended (Government response to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry report (volume 1), DBT, 9 October 2025).
- The Business and Trade Select Committee noted the government provides funded legal advice at appeal stage rather than upfront as recommended (Business and Trade Select Committee evidence session, January 2026).
- The Business and Trade Committee report HC 1598 concluded the government had not properly implemented this recommendation, finding that legal advice is not available at the point of decision between Fixed Sum Offer and assessed redress (Business and Trade Committee, HC 1598, March 2026).
Response — verbatim from government
●Department for Business and Trade
Department for Business and Trade broadly accepts this recommendation. Rather than providing upfront legal advice, DBT provides funding for legal advice at the appeal permission stage. Additionally, an information support service has been established which explains scheme options, claim details, loss categories, and considerations around expert evidence to claimants before they make decisions.
Department for Business and Trade · 9 Oct 2025 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 2 Mar 2026 DBT accepted this recommendation. As detailed in the Government's response, the Department will provide funding for legal advice at the point at which the claimant chooses between accepting the Fixed Sum Offer or seeking individually assessed redress by seeking permission to appeal under Recommendation 9. Separate to the provision of legal advice, DBT has put in place an information and support service to help claimants apply for redress, which opened on 9 December 2025. Further information about this service can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-support-from-the-information-and-support-service. Further information on the process for requesting permission to appeal an HSS Fixed Sum offer will be published in due course. Source →
- 31 Jan 2026 Verification: Government published formal response to Volume 1 recommendations on 13 October 2025, accepting 17 of 18 recommendations. Total compensation paid across all schemes: £1.38 billion as of December 2025. Volume 2 of Final Report expected 2026. Source →
- 13 Mar 2026 · Business and Trade Committee HC 1598 HC 1598 concluded the government has not properly implemented Sir Wyn Williams's recommendation to provide legal advice for HSS claimants. Legal advice is funded only at the HSSA appeal stage, not upfront as recommended. The committee recommended that any eligible individual currently going through the HSS who has not yet settled should also be entitled to funded legal advice. View source → Insufficient Progress
- 6 Jan 2026 · Business and Trade Select Committee Business and Trade Select Committee noted the government provides funded legal advice at appeal stage rather than upfront as recommended. The committee questioned whether this departure from the recommendation disadvantaged claimants during initial assessments. View source → Reasonable Progress
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.