Latest news with #postmasters
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Employee-owned Post Office model ‘unlikely to be considered until 2030'
Turning the Post Office into an employee-owned organisation could not be considered until 2030, the Government has revealed, as it could also scrap the 11,500-branch requirement as part of a major review into its future. The current level of taxpayer funding for the Government-owned postal service is unsustainable, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said in a new Green Paper on the organisation's future. This sets out its views on how the Post Office should be run in the future, including possible changes to its ownership structure. The DBT said turning the organisation into a 'mutual', whereby it is collectively owned by its members, was a possible long-term version of this structure could see membership limited to postmasters and franchisees, or it could also include customers, employees and communities. But the Government said the Post Office 'should be financially and operationally stable before mutualisation can be considered', meaning it would need to be profitable and cash-generative. It is also in the process of working to replace its Horizon IT system following the scandal, in which about 1,000 people are thought to have been wrongly prosecuted and convicted over shortfalls in their branches caused by faulty software. This means the earliest date to consider mutualisation is thought to be around 2030, the DBT said. It could then take a further three years to implement, with it being a 'complex, time consuming and potentially expensive process', the Green Paper read. The Government said another long-term option for the ownership structure is a charter model, similar to the BBC and universities, which sets out an organisation's public purpose and rules for how it operates. Meanwhile, the paper found that the Post Office's requirement to run at least 11,500 branches across the UK had become 'more challenging and costly' due to rising labour costs against declining visitors across the network. This has resulted in it requiring more subsidies from the Government in recent years, it said. The DBT said one option for the future of the Post Office network was to scrap the minimum branch requirement, meaning it could address loss-making branches and focus on bigger, full-service sites. But it would still have to ensure that at least 99% of the population stay within three miles of a full-service branch under this option. The Government stressed that its current level of funding to the Post Office is 'unsustainable' in the long-term and that the organisation should be able to self-fund investment in its network and postmasters. The Post Office made a trading profit of £22 million in the 2023-24 financial year, according to its latest annual report. But it is estimated to swing to a trading loss of £24 million for the latest year and £60 million over the 2025-26 financial year. However, the Government plans to award a new subsidy package worth £118 million to fund a transformation plan and further investment that could improve its services and its financial position. Alongside the Green Paper, the DBT said it had launched a three-month consultation period, giving customers and postmasters the opportunity to have a say in how the service is run. Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said: 'Post Offices continue to be a central part of our high streets and communities across the country. 'However, after 15 years without a proper review, and in the aftermath of the Horizon scandal, it's clear we need a fresh vision for its future. 'This Green Paper marks the start of an honest conversation about what people want and need from their Post Office in the years ahead.' Neil Brocklehurst, Post Office's chief executive, said: 'We now have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to have a national conversation about the future of our post offices and their role in supporting communities across the UK. 'This Government consultation is a vital part of shaping what the future of Post Office could, and should, look like.' Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), criticised the Green Paper for 'prioritising further cost-cutting and offering no vision for its future'. 'Successive governments have failed the Post Office, its workers and customers – choosing to use government subsidies for planned redundancies, closures and so-called transformation plans that are nothing more than managed decline,' he said. Mr Ward said the CWU was advocating a 'joint venture ownership model' that would bring the Post Office and Royal Mail back together and give postmasters greater say over the governance and direction of the company.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Employee-owned Post Office model ‘unlikely to be considered until 2030'
Turning the Post Office into an employee-owned organisation could not be considered until 2030, the Government has revealed, as it could also scrap the 11,500-branch requirement as part of a major review into its future. The current level of taxpayer funding for the Government-owned postal service is unsustainable, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said in a new Green Paper on the organisation's future. This sets out its views on how the Post Office should be run in the future, including possible changes to its ownership structure. The DBT said turning the organisation into a 'mutual', whereby it is collectively owned by its members, was a possible long-term option. One version of this structure could see membership limited to postmasters and franchisees, or it could also include customers, employees and communities. But the Government said the Post Office 'should be financially and operationally stable before mutualisation can be considered', meaning it would need to be profitable and cash-generative. It is also in the process of working to replace its Horizon IT system following the scandal, in which about 1,000 people are thought to have been wrongly prosecuted and convicted over shortfalls in their branches caused by faulty software. This means the earliest date to consider mutualisation is thought to be around 2030, the DBT said. It could then take a further three years to implement, with it being a 'complex, time consuming and potentially expensive process', the Green Paper read. The Government said another long-term option for the ownership structure is a charter model, similar to the BBC and universities, which sets out an organisation's public purpose and rules for how it operates. Meanwhile, the paper found that the Post Office's requirement to run at least 11,500 branches across the UK had become 'more challenging and costly' due to rising labour costs against declining visitors across the network. This has resulted in it requiring more subsidies from the Government in recent years, it said. The DBT said one option for the future of the Post Office network was to scrap the minimum branch requirement, meaning it could address loss-making branches and focus on bigger, full-service sites. But it would still have to ensure that at least 99% of the population stay within three miles of a full-service branch under this option. The Government stressed that its current level of funding to the Post Office is 'unsustainable' in the long-term and that the organisation should be able to self-fund investment in its network and postmasters. Alongside the Green Paper, the DBT said it had launched a three-month consultation period, giving customers and postmasters the opportunity to have a say in how the service is run. Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said: 'Post Offices continue to be a central part of our high streets and communities across the country. 'However, after 15 years without a proper review, and in the aftermath of the Horizon scandal, it's clear we need a fresh vision for its future. 'This Green Paper marks the start of an honest conversation about what people want and need from their Post Office in the years ahead.' Neil Brocklehurst, Post Office's chief executive, said: 'We now have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to have a national conversation about the future of our post offices and their role in supporting communities across the UK. 'This Government consultation is a vital part of shaping what the future of Post Office could, and should, look like.' Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), criticised the Green Paper for 'prioritising further cost-cutting and offering no vision for its future'. 'Successive governments have failed the Post Office, its workers and customers – choosing to use government subsidies for planned redundancies, closures and so-called transformation plans that are nothing more than managed decline,' he said. Mr Ward said the CWU was advocating a 'joint venture ownership model' that would bring the Post Office and Royal Mail back together and give postmasters greater say over the governance and direction of the company.
Irish Times
08-07-2025
- Irish Times
Dozens contemplated suicide over UK Post Office scandal, says official report
Dozens of people contemplated taking their own life because of their experiences of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, an official report has found. More than 1,000 post office operators wrongly accused of taking money from their branches because of faulty software. Bankruptcy, divorce and vitriolic abuse from the public were among the other 'harrowing' impacts laid bare in a long-awaited report from the inquiry on Tuesday. The inquiry chairman, retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, said at least 59 people 'contemplated suicide at various points in time' and 'attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office'. READ MORE He described it as a 'common experience' among both people who were prosecuted and those who were not and said 10 of the 59 had attempted to take their own lives, some on more than one occasion. His report said the families of six former postmasters and seven others who were not postmasters claimed they had taken their own lives 'as a consequence of Horizon showing an illusory shortfall in branch accounts'. Mr Williams said it was a 'real possibility' the 13 had died as a result of their experiences of the scandal. He said: 'I should stress that whist I cannot make a definitive finding that there is a causal connection between the deaths of all 13 persons and Horizon, I do not rule it out as a real possibility. 'It is also possible that more than 13 persons, as indicated by the Post Office in response to the inquiry's requests in March 2025, died by suicide but that some deaths have not been reported to the Post Office or the inquiry.' Mr Williams's report told of the range of ways in which the devastating fallout of the scandal affected Post Office workers and their families, from investigations to convictions. He wrote: 'Nearly all the persons interviewed under caution by Post Office investigators will have been in wholly unfamiliar territory and they will have found the experience to be troubling at best and harrowing at worst.' For those who were jailed 'life may have seemed close to unbearable' at times, while others who were convicted but not imprisoned often faced 'hostile and abusive behaviour from members of the public in the locality'. The convicted people who gave evidence to the inquiry told of the 'psychiatric and psychological problems which dogged them throughout the Post Office's audit and investigation process, the criminal process and thereafter'. Mr Williams said a 'significant number' of those prosecuted and convicted said they contemplated self-harm, while 19 people said they had abused alcohol 'and attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office'. It is thought approximately 1,000 people have been wrongly prosecuted and convicted across the UK between 1999 and 2015, with somewhere between 50 and 60 people prosecuted but not convicted, Mr Williams said. Those who were acquitted still faced being 'ostracised in their local community', the report noted. Postmasters who were suspended or had their contracts terminated 'suffered heightened distress and worry' over their loss of business, income and the effects on their family, it added. If branches closed they 'became the object of local hostility and adverse local publicity'. Many convicted postmasters were declared bankrupt, described by the report as a 'complicating factor in a number of claims brought by claimants'. Some evidence laid out the 'catalogue of misfortunes which befell' postmasters and their families. The report said: 'Wives, husbands, children and parents endured very significant suffering in the form of distress, worry and disruption (to home life, in employment and in education). 'In a number of cases relationships with spouses and partners broke down and ended in divorce or separation.' The report said that on many occasions 'immediate family members were forced to endure vitriolic abuse from persons within their local or cultural community'. Elderly parents had provided financial support using their savings in some cases to help children who were sub-postmasters, with the report adding: 'Some of those convicted spoke of their immense regret that parents had not lived to see their convictions being quashed.' The inquiry chairman also paid tribute to the 'fortitude and determination' of spouses and other close relatives of those postmasters who died before having their convictions quashed on appeal. - PA/Guardian
Sky News
08-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News
At least 13 people may have taken their own lives linked to Post Office scandal, public inquiry finds
At least 13 people may have taken their own lives after being accused of wrongdoing based on evidence from the Horizon IT system that the Post Office and developers Fujitsu knew could be false, the public inquiry has found. A further 59 people told the inquiry they considered ending their lives, 10 of whom tried on at least one occasion, while other postmasters and family members recount suffering from alcoholism and mental health disorders including anorexia and depression, family breakup, divorce, bankruptcy and personal abuse. Writing in the first volume of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry report, chairman Sir Wyn Williams concludes that this enormous personal toll came despite senior employees at the Post Office knowing the Horizon IT system could produce accounts "which were illusory rather than real" even before it was rolled out to branches. Sir Wyn said: "I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not so senior, employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least, should have known that Legacy Horizon was capable of error… Yet, for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate." Referring to the updated version of Horizon, known as Horizon Online, which also had "bugs errors and defects" that could create illusory accounts, he said: "I am satisfied that a number of employees of Fujitsu and the Post Office knew that this was so." The first volume of the report focuses on what Sir Wyn calls the "disastrous" impact of false accusations made against at least 1,000 postmasters, and the various redress schemes the Post Office and government has established since miscarriages of justice were identified and proven. 3:28 Recommendations regarding the conduct of senior management of the Post Office, Fujitsu and ministers will come in a subsequent report, but Sir Wyn is clear that unjust and flawed prosecutions were knowingly pursued. "All of these people are properly to be regarded as victims of wholly unacceptable behaviour perpetrated by a number of individuals employed by and/or associated with the Post Office and Fujitsu from time to time and by the Post Office and Fujitsu as institutions," he says. What are the inquiry's recommendations? Calling for urgent action from government and the Post Office to ensure "full and fair compensation", he makes 19 recommendations including: • Government and the Post Office to agree a definition of "full and fair" compensation to be used when agreeing payouts • Ending "unnecessarily adversarial attitude" to initial offers that have depressed the value of payouts, and ensuring consistency across all four compensation schemes • The creation of a standing body to administer financial redress to people wronged by public bodies • Compensation to be extended to close family members of those affected who have suffered "serious negative consequences" • The Post Office, Fujitsu and government agreeing a programme for "restorative justice", a process that brings together those that have suffered harm with those that have caused it Regarding the human impact of the Post Office's pursuit of postmasters, including its use of unique powers of prosecution, Sir Wyn writes: "I do not think it is easy to exaggerate the trauma which persons are likely to suffer when they are the subject of criminal investigation, prosecution, conviction and sentence." He says that even the process of being interviewed under caution by Post Office investigators "will have been troubling at best and harrowing at worst". 'Hostile and abusive behaviour' The report finds that those wrongfully convicted were "subject to hostile and abusive behaviour" in their local communities, felt shame and embarrassment, with some feeling forced to move. Detailing the impact on close family members of those prosecuted, Sir Wyn writes: "Wives, husbands, children and parents endured very significant suffering in the form of distress, worry and disruption to home life, in employment and education. "In a number of cases, relationships with spouses broke down and ended in divorce or separation. "In the most egregious cases, family members themselves suffered psychiatric illnesses or psychological problems and very significant financial losses… their suffering has been acute." The report includes 17 case studies of those affected by the scandal including some who have never spoken publicly before. They include Millie Castleton, daughter of Lee Castleton, one of the first postmasters prosecuted. 1:34 She told the inquiry how her family being "branded thieves and liars" affected her mental health, and contributed to a diagnosis of anorexia that forced her to drop out of university. Her account concludes: "Even now as I go into my career, I still find it so incredibly hard to trust anyone, even subconsciously. I sabotage myself by not asking for help with anything. "I'm trying hard to break this cycle but I'm 26 and am very conscious that I may never be able to fully commit to natural trust. But my family is still fighting. I'm still fighting, as are many hundreds involved in the Post Office trial." Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the inquiry's report "marks an important milestone for sub-postmasters and their families". He added that he was "committed to ensuring wronged sub-postmasters are given full, fair, and prompt redress". "The recommendations contained in Sir Wyn's report require careful reflection, including on further action to complete the redress schemes," Mr Reynolds said.
The Independent
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Dozens thought about suicide due to Post Office Horizon scandal, report finds
Dozens of people contemplated suicide because of their experiences of the Post Office Horizon scandal, an official report has found. Bankruptcy, divorce and vitriolic abuse from the public were among the other 'harrowing' impacts laid bare in a long-awaited report from the inquiry on Tuesday. The inquiry chairman, retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, said at least 59 people 'contemplated suicide at various points in time' and 'attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office'. He described it as a 'common experience' among both people who were prosecuted and those who were not and said 10 of the 59 had attempted to take their own lives, some on more than one occasion. His report said the families of six former postmasters and seven others who were not postmasters claimed they had taken their own lives 'as a consequence of Horizon showing an illusory shortfall in branch accounts'. Sir Wyn said it was a 'real possibility' the 13 had died as a result of their experiences of the scandal. He said: 'I should stress that whilst I cannot make a definitive finding that there is a causal connection between the deaths of all 13 persons and Horizon, I do not rule it out as a real possibility. 'It is also possible that more than 13 persons, as indicated by the Post Office in response to the inquiry's requests in March 2025, died by suicide but that some deaths have not been reported to the Post Office or the inquiry.' Sir Wyn's report told of the range of ways in which the devastating fallout of the scandal affected Post Office workers and their families, from investigations to convictions. He wrote: 'Nearly all the persons interviewed under caution by Post Office investigators will have been in wholly unfamiliar territory and they will have found the experience to be troubling at best and harrowing at worst.' For those who were jailed 'life may have seemed close to unbearable' at times, while others who were convicted but not imprisoned often faced 'hostile and abusive behaviour from members of the public in the locality'. The convicted who gave evidence to the inquiry told of the 'psychiatric and psychological problems which dogged them throughout the Post Office's audit and investigation process, the criminal process and thereafter'. Sir Wyn said a 'significant number' of those prosecuted and convicted said they contemplated self-harm, while 19 people said they had abused alcohol 'and attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office.' It is thought approximately 1,000 people have been wrongly prosecuted and convicted across the UK between 1999 and 2015, with somewhere between 50 and 60 people prosecuted but not convicted, Sir Wyn said. Those who were acquitted still faced being 'ostracised in their local community', the report noted. Postmasters who were suspended or had their contracts terminated 'suffered heightened distress and worry' over their loss of business, income and the effects on their family, it added. If branches closed they 'became the object of local hostility and adverse local publicity'. Many convicted postmasters were declared bankrupt, described by the report as a 'complicating factor in a number of claims brought by claimants'. Some evidence laid out the 'catalogue of misfortunes which befell' postmasters and their families. The report said: 'Wives, husbands, children and parents endured very significant suffering in the form of distress, worry and disruption (to home life, in employment and in education). 'In a number of cases relationships with spouses and partners broke down and ended in divorce or separation.' The report said that on many occasions 'immediate family members were forced to endure vitriolic abuse from persons within their local or cultural community'. Elderly parents had provided financial support using their savings in some cases to help children who were subpostmasters, with the report adding: 'Some of those convicted spoke of their immense regret that parents had not lived to see their convictions being quashed.' The inquiry chairman also paid tribute to the 'fortitude and determination' of spouses and other close relatives of those postmasters who died before having their convictions quashed on appeal.
