- Government criticised for slow progress and poor outreach in compensating Horizon scandal victims,
- Just one in five responded to compensation letters; officials fear “harassing” victims by following up.
- PAC slams lack of urgency, calling it “deeply dissatisfactory” and “unacceptable”
The Post Office Horizon scandal victims compensations schemes are "moving far too slowly", with no government plans to track down the majority of potential claimants who may not yet be aware of their proper entitlements, states a recent report presented in the parliament, as thousands await full and fair compensation.
According to the report by Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released today (June 25), based on figures provided by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) in May 2025, only approximately one in five of letters sent to postmasters making them aware of one of the compensation schemes had been responded to.
It emerged in the report that government has no current plans to follow up with people eligible for compensation.
When asked by the PAC why it was not following up letters that had not received a reply, the government said that it was “concerned that individuals receiving letters would feel harassed if they had a series of letters asking the same thing”.
By March this year, the Post Office, which is owned by the government, had written to 18,500 people, regarding applications for the Horizon ShortfallScheme (HSS), but the majority had not responded.
The report adds that the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS), which offers 800 eligible people a choice between applying for a £600,000 flat-rate settlement or the option to pursue a "full claim assessment", had received 536 applications by May this year.
Of those, 339 had chosen the flat payout sum. The report said the government had yet to receive any full claim assessment applications under this scheme.
In relation to the Overturned Convictions Scheme, 25 eligible individuals out of 111 people had not yet submitted a claim, some of which represent the most complex cases. Some 86 had submitted full and final claims, of which 69 had been paid.
The PAC report said the government had "no plans for following up with people who are, or may be, eligible to claim under the schemes but who have not yet applied".
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said, “The Post Office Horizon scandal was one of the UK’s worst ever miscarriages of justice. Thousands of people were failed deeply by the system.
"This Committee would have hoped to have found government laser-focused on ensuring all those eligible were fully and fairly compensated for what happened.
"It is deeply dissatisfactory to find these schemes still moving far too slowly, with no government plans to track down the majority of potential claimants who may not yet be aware of their proper entitlements.
"It is entirely unacceptable that those affected by this scandal, some of whom have had to go through the courts to clear their names, are being forced to relitigate their cases a second time."
Latest figures showed a total of £1.039bn has been awarded to just over 7,300 sub-postmasters across all the redress schemes.
The committee has made several recommendations to the government with the broad message that every postmaster be made fully aware of the options for claiming compensation.
Long-time Post Office victims campaigner Sir Alan Bates told Sky News, "What is evident is that the PAC, along with ourselves, are dismayed about the length of time all this is taking and the failure of all victims to be contacted.
"It really only goes to support what I have been saying time and time again, that government departments are the entirely wrong people to run these types of schemes as they only grind them into the dust with bureaucracy."
The DBT said it does not expect to receive any itemised claims for full assessment until the autumn because they are “complex [and] the spread of potential payments is far greater”.
There are four main schemes that sub-postmasters can apply to for compensation, and individual eligibility depends on the circumstances of each case.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty Horizon IT system made it look like money was missing from branch accounts. Some sub-postmasters ended up going to prison, while many more were financially ruined and lost their livelihoods. Some died while waiting for justice.
The scandal has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, but many victims are still waiting for financial redress, despite government pledges to speed up payouts.
