Government announces Green Paper on future of scandal-ridden Post Office

Consultation process will enable a wide range of people to air their views on the future of the scandal-hit Post Office

Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Published: 08 Nov 2024 18:00

The government is to publish a Green Paper to gather information to help decide the Post Office’s future following the Horizon IT scandal and its aftermath.

Gareth Thomas, the small business minister responsible for the Post Office, said the consultation document will consider what customers, communities and postmasters would like to see from a modern Post Office network. It will also seek views on how to change the culture within the Post Office, often cited as a cause of the Horizon scandal.

Labour made a manifesto commitment to examine ways to strengthen the Post Office network and now in government, Thomas has outlined the next steps. A Green Paper is a mechanism for the government to consult a wide variety of the public and parliamentarians on policy and legislative proposals.

Thomas said in a written statenent to the House of Commons: “While we continue to address the past, now is also the time to consider the future of the Post Office... The UK-wide Post Office branch network is an essential part of the UK’s economic infrastructure, supporting high streets, businesses, and contributing directly to the government’s mission to kick start economic growth.”

He said the Post Office is a public asset and the public must have their say on the future direction. “As such, government plans to publish a Green Paper to seek the public’s views on a range of different proposals in the first half of 2025,” he added.

“Given the complexity and scale of some of the challenges being faced by the Post Office, the Department [for Business and Trade] has appointed external consultants to support this work." During his appearance at the Post Office Horizon scandal public inquiry on 8 November, Thomas said Boston Consulting Group would support the review.

He also said plotting the Post Office’s future and changing its culture is one of government’s three priorities for the organisation alongside “getting compensation to victims of the scandal more quickly” and finding any gaps in the financial redress schemes. Thomas was asked by the inquiry about changing the Post Office culture. He said the Green Paper would ensure that “a wide variety of people can help us reach a judgement on how we improve the culture.”

Charles Donald, CEO at UK Government Investments, the body which oversees the government's relationship with the Post Office as its sole shareholder, followed Thomas into the witness box at the inquiry. He was asked whether the Post Office could be self-sufficient in the future and not rely on public money to operate. He said this would require cost cutting and for network reduction to be considered.

“I would say [self-sufficiency] is an appropriate aim, but I struggle to see [it] with the structure in place at the moment. Particularly with the scale of the network obligation and then the cost structure. I think consideration would need to be given to both those issues in order to produce a sustainable business,” Donald said. Reducing the branch network has long been a controversial topic.

He added that the Post Office board relies on government funding to continue as a going concern.

Donald said it is important for the Post Office to be “self-sustaining” if it were to mutualise, which has been put forward as a future option for the organisation. “… as a concept I think is a really interesting concept. I think, however, it's really important that, if an entity was to be mutualized that that entity is self-sustaining and financially and economically sound, prior to it being mutualized because, otherwise, a mutualisation of a financially insecure and inefficient organisation is not going to do anyone any benefit whatsoever,” he told the inquiry.

According to former Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake, addressing cost cutting at the Post Office was difficult. In his inquiry session, he described conversations with outgoing CEO Nick Read about cutting central costs, as being like "drawing teeth". This was despite 143 managers and executives earning more than £100,000 a year.

The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is now in its seventh and final phase, which is focusing on the Post Office’s current practice and procedure, as well as recommendations for the future.

Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).

Government announces Green Paper on future of scandal-ridden Post Office

Consultation process will enable a wide range of people to air their views on the future of the scandal-hit Post Office

Timeline: Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009

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