Allow 3-month window to accept Fixed Sum Offer after assessment
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
Any claimant who opts to have a claim assessed when the claim is submitted to the Post Office or the Department may decide to accept the Fixed Sum Offer at any time thereafter up to and including the date which is three calendar months following the receipt by the claimant of a first assessed offer. For the avoidance of any doubt, (1) this recommendation applies to all relevant schemes i.e. HSS, OCS/HCRS and GLOS and (2) once the time period specified in the first sentence hereof has expired, the claimant will have no right to accept the Fixed Sum Offer.
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 accepted this recommendation on 9 October 2025 and implemented it from that date, giving HSS and HCRS claimants three months from receipt of their first detailed offer to revert to the Fixed Sum Offer (Government response to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry report (volume 1), DBT, 9 October 2025).
- The Business and Trade Select Committee noted the three-month window had been implemented from 9 October 2025 (Business and Trade Select Committee evidence session, January 2026).
Response — verbatim from government
●Department for Business and Trade
Department for Business and Trade accepts this recommendation. From 9 October, claimants to HSS and HCRS will have 3 months from receipt of their first detailed assessed offer to revert to accepting the Fixed Sum Offer. Notification is being coordinated to ensure all claimants are aware of this change. For the avoidance of any doubt, this applies to all relevant schemes: HSS, OCS/HCRS and GLOS.
Department for Business and Trade · 9 Oct 2025 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 2 Mar 2026 This recommendation was implemented on 9 October 2025. Claimants to the HSS and HCRS will have 3 months from receipt of their first detailed offer to revert to the Fixed Sum Offer, should they wish. Any claimant who was already in receipt of a first offer but had not yet accepted this became eligible to revert to the Fixed Sum Offer within three months of 9 October 2025. Post Office are also reviewing their claimant records to ensure that any claimant who became eligible to revert to the Fixed Sum Offer has been written to, to inform them of this right. 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 →
- 6 Jan 2026 · Business and Trade Select Committee Business and Trade Select Committee noted the 3-month window for claimants to revert to the Fixed Sum Offer had been implemented from 9 October 2025 in HSS and HCRS. View source → Confirmed Completed
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.