Business minister Gareth Thomas has revealed that the Government might take over from the Post Office in handling compensation for those affected by the Horizon scandal.
In a statement to MPs, he disclosed that £79m has already been paid out to 232 individuals through the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme. However, concerns linger about the Post Office's capability to manage both the Horizon shortfall scheme and the overturned conviction scheme effectively.
The Horizon shortfall scheme offers subpostmasters a choice between a £75,000 Fixed Sum Award or a full assessment of their claim, while the overturned conviction scheme caters to anyone whose wrongful conviction due to the flawed Horizon IT system has been quashed by the courts.
Mr Thomas outlined a number of areas the Government was considering amending some parts of the redress system as there are still “complex cases to resolve”. He said: "There are still concerns about the responsibility of the Post Office to deliver the Horizon shortfall scheme and the overturned conviction scheme."
"The Government is considering the merits of my department taking over this responsibility, but the benefits of such a move must clearly outweigh the disruption that could potentially be caused. We are carefully considering what, if any, intervention we may take."
He earlier said: "We are looking again at the arguments for providing additional redress to members of postmasters’ families who were affected by the scandal, and to the employees of postmasters. I will report back to the House on that in due course."
"The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board recommended an appeals process independent of the Post Office and Government for the Horizon short fall scheme, they recommended that it be established, and we accepted that recommendation in September."
"We are in the process of assembling a team of independent, external lawyers to help deliver the appeals process. We expect that contract to be awarded in January, and I will be able to provide a further update on the appeals process early in the new year."
Mr Thomas also highlighted the need for parts of the process to be expedited. He said: "While the progress we have made is positive, we know there are still complex cases to resolve, and we also need to speed up other parts of the redress process."
"There are many postmasters who are still to be compensated or to have their cases reconsidered."
"I am very conscious that for the victims of the Horizon scandal, justice delayed is justice denied; that our responsibility in Government is to work to make the compensation process as effective as possible."
Yesterday, the Government acknowledged that Capture, the system which preceded Horizon, could have caused accounting shortfalls for subpostmasters who used it. Capture was introduced in Post Office branches in 1992, before being replaced by Fujitsu’s Horizon software in 1999.
The Post Office-Horizon scandal led to hundreds of subpostmasters being wrongfully convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting over more than a decade. Many lost their livelihoods, life savings, reputations and even ended up in jail.
Mr Thomas stated that the Government faces "a significant challenge" in terms of the amount of evidence available on those affected by Capture. He added: "There is, for example, no central record that has been found as yet of the number of Capture users and indeed, who they were. We are nevertheless going to be working to design a redress scheme."