Appoint senior lawyer to ensure HSS offers are full and fair
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
A suitably qualified senior lawyer shall be appointed to HSS as soon as is practicable with the aim that any such appointee will take appropriate action to ensure that first offers to claimants (a) are "full and fair" (b) made to those who have submitted claims to the Post Office and which are to be assessed as soon as is reasonably practicable and (c) are made to future claimants whose claims are to be assessed within a reasonable time.
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 announced the appointment of Sir Gary Hickinbottom, then Chair of the HCRS Independent Panel, as HSS Senior Lawyer (Government response to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry report (volume 1), DBT, 9 October 2025).
- Sir Gary Hickinbottom assumed the role from December 2025 and began reviewing HSS first offers (Progress update, DBT, March 2026).
- The Business and Trade Committee report HC 1598 noted the appointment was made but found the HSS remained "broken" for fully-assessed claims, with assessed offers taking an average of 25 months and major disparities between first offers and final settlements (Business and Trade Committee, HC 1598, March 2026).
Response — verbatim from government
●Department for Business and Trade
Department for Business and Trade accepts this recommendation. Sir Gary Hickinbottom has been appointed as HSS Senior Lawyer to ensure that first offers to claimants are "full and fair", made to those who have submitted claims to the Post Office as soon as is reasonably practicable, and made to future claimants within a reasonable time. Enquiries can be directed to hss.islsecretariat@dentons.com.
Department for Business and Trade · 9 Oct 2025 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 2 Mar 2026 Sir Gary Hickinbottom has been appointed to the position of HSS Independent Senior Lawyer and assumed the role from December 2025. Sir Gary has started his work and will publish a report following each investigation carried out. Sir Gary also chairs the independent panel on HCRS. 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 noted the senior lawyer appointment was made but found the HSS remains "broken" for fully-assessed claims. Assessed offers take an average of 450 days (target: 180) and are frequently undervalued. Claimant lawyers described offers as "ridiculously low". The committee recommended all remaining complex HSS cases be transferred from Post Office Ltd to DBT. View source → Mixed Findings
- 6 Jan 2026 · Business and Trade Select Committee Business and Trade Select Committee noted Sir Gary Hickinbottom had been appointed as HSS Senior Lawyer. The committee questioned the extent of powers given to him to ensure first offers to claimants were fair. 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.