A recent survey conducted by YouGov has found that over two-thirds of Post Office sub-postmasters have experienced discrepancies on the Horizon IT system, dating back to January 2020. The results of the poll show that problems that led to one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice are still present on a newer version of the accountancy system which is still used by the Post Office. The inquiry into the financial scandal begins on Monday and will focus predominantly on the current operations of the wholly government-owned Post Office.
Between 1999 and 2015, over 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly charged with fraud due to an error in the Horizon IT system which made it appear as though money was missing from the accounts of Post Office branches. Yet, despite this, the Horizon IT system is still in operation in UK Post Offices. The YouGov survey revealed that nearly half of sub-postmasters it spoke to expressed dissatisfaction with the current Horizon IT system, compared with 25% who were satisfied with its performance. 92% of sub-postmasters surveyed reported experiencing some form of issue with the Horizon IT system during the last 12 months.
The most common difficulties that respondents reported facing were screen freezes and loss of connection. 50% of sub-postmasters mentioned experiencing “unexplained discrepancies”, while others indicated that they had witnessed unexplained transactions. The data was commissioned by inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams. A total of 6,532 Post Office sub-postmasters were invited to take part in the survey with 1,015 people responding. The Post Office has been contacted for comment on the poll results.
YouGov was also responsible for a secondary survey on compensation payouts related to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS). The results found that almost half of HSS applicants surveyed were dissatisfied with the scheme. Of those questioned, approximately half found the scheme difficult to understand, and 78% reported having not received any contact from a compensation case assessor.
The HSS has been established for sub-postmasters who were not convicted or parties to the Group Litigation Order (GLO) court action, but who believe that they experienced shortfalls due to the Horizon system. This group is offered a fixed payment of £75,000 and is one of the three compensation schemes available to over 4,000 people affected by the scandal. However, former sub-postmaster and campaigner Sir Alan Bates has criticised the length of time it is taking for victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal to receive redress. He has accused Government-employed “flim-flam artists” of dragging out the process and entangling the scheme in bureaucracy
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