Require HSS first offers match Independent Advisory Panel recommendation
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
In HSS the Post Office shall be obliged to make, and the Department shall be obliged to approve (when necessary) a first offer to a claimant which is no less than the sum recommended by the Independent Advisory Panel.
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, confirming that no first offer had ever been made below the sum recommended by the HSS Panel (Government response to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry report (volume 1), DBT, 9 October 2025).
- The Business and Trade Select Committee heard that this had been confirmed as existing practice, requiring no retrospective changes (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. In HSS the Post Office is obliged to make, and the Department obliged to approve (when necessary), first offers to claimants which are no less than the sum recommended by the Independent Advisory Panel. This does not require any retrospective changes as no first offer has ever been made which is less than the sum recommended by the Panel. The scheme documents have been updated to formally reflect this requirement.
Department for Business and Trade · 9 Oct 2025 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 2 Mar 2026 No first offer has ever been made which is less than the sum recommended by the HSS Panel. Claimants are informed of this upon receipt of their offer. 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 heard that no first offer had ever been made in HSS below the sum recommended by the Panel, meaning the requirement in this recommendation had not needed to be enforced retroactively. 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.