On Monday, the inquiry into the scandal heard from Saf Ismail, a sub-postmaster who was appointed to the Post Office board as a non-executive director in 2021 in a move by the company to attempt to improve relations with sub-postmasters.
In his evidence, Mr Ismail, who has stepped back from his role on the board, said sub-postmasters on the board were not welcome and he was told that Post Office chief executive Nick Read wanted to reverse the set-up because they were “too awkward and too challenging”.
Mr Ismail also said he raised concerns with the board over some Post Office employees being redeployed from investigations teams that had worked on Horizon cases to the remediation unit set up to award compensation to sub-postmasters.
“I think it’s an insult,” he said. “A postmaster who was potentially terminated, wrongly prosecuted, has then got an individual who potentially has done all that damage to them and their life then giving them the compensation – that just does not sit well with me.”
YouGov also held a second survey regarding compensation payouts relating to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS). It found nearly half of the 1,483 HSS applicants who responded were dissatisfied with the scheme.
Just under half the sub-postmasters surveyed said they found the scheme hard to understand, while some 78% reported they had not received contact from a compensation case assessor.
“Among those with an application outcome, there was generally high dissatisfaction with various elements of the offer,” YouGov said.
“There was a sense that the process was too long, with a lack of transparency.”
The HSS is for sub-postmasters who were not convicted, or part of the Group Litigation Order (GLO) court action, but who believe they experienced shortfalls because of Horizon. This group will be offered a fixed payment of £75,000.
It is one of three compensation schemes available to more than 4,000 people affected by the scandal. The other two are the GLO scheme for the 555 former sub-postmasters who won their group lawsuit, and the Overturned Convictions Scheme.
Former sub-postmaster and campaigner Sir Alan Bates has hit out at the length of time it is taking for victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal to receive financial redress, particularly in relation to the GLO scheme.
The government said all 2,417 “original” Horizon Shortfall Scheme applicants have received an offer of compensation. However, the government recognised that was not the case for later applicants, and said it was “working tirelessly to bring them full, fair and swift redress”.
