The Post Office was not consulted over the previous government’s decision to offer £600,000 to wrongly convicted postmasters – a move described by the company’s head of financial compensation as a “political” decision.
During the recent public inquiry into the Post Office scandal, Simon Ricaldine – responsible for overseeing compensation schemes run by the Post Office – said the Post Office expected to pay £650 million in financial compensation by March next year and that the final bill would be around £1.4 billion. British pounds.
Ricaldine was questioned about the government’s announcement in September last year when ministers revealed that all wrongly convicted postmasters would be offered £600,000 in financial compensation. This can be accepted as a final settlement or those affected can continue with full demands for more. About 900 former subsidiary managers and subsidiary employees may be eligible for compensation.
Ricaldine said he supported the proposal, but told the inquiry the Post Office had not been consulted about the proposal. “I thought the £600,000 opportunity was fantastic, it was an inspiring idea in terms of how we could speed up the reform process,” he said. But he wondered how to “enforce this policy on the post office.”
“The Government did not consult the Post Office. I was told this at a quarterly shareholders meeting and was told it would happen the next day. He said the announcement was ‘shrouded in secrecy’ in terms of its launch, and the Post Office was expected to run, manage and pay the bid.
The decision came directly from the then Foreign Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, via former Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake, who Rickaldine said: “That’s one of the reasons we believe it was kept secret, because it had to make an impact, a positive impact.” “.
Ricaldin said he did not want to get into the politics of the decision, but told the investigation that “there are elements to it.” [the £600,000] Advertisement “Additional funding in last week’s Autumn Budget is ‘political.’” Treasurer Rachel Reeves revealed an increase in compensation funding to £1.8bn, from a previous estimate of £1.2bn.
“I find myself in a really difficult position about it because politicians take the opportunity, which is their right, to give themselves publicity or credit,” Ricaldin said.
He added that the announcement of the payment of £600,000 caused problems for those affected. “We have had contact from very distressed former postmasters in that group and have received reports of people knocking on their doors about [the payments]“And that was very painful.”
During Ricalden’s testimony, it was also revealed that some former postmasters had been in dispute with the post office over their financial compensation for four years and that initial offers often increased dramatically when challenged by the victims’ legal representatives.
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven sub-managers and the problems they suffered because of accounting software Horizon, leading to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (See below a timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
