Post Business hunts board member to oversee IT scandal compensation | Enterprise Information

The Post Office is recruiting a board member to oversee the likely huge payment scheme resulting from the IT scandal which led to the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

Sky Information has learnt that the authorities has authorised the appointment of a new non-executive director to chair a committee that will oversee the management of the firm’s Historical Shortfalls Plan – with the price tag probably jogging to hundreds of tens of millions of lbs.

A deadline for applicants for the role is comprehended to have expired in latest days, and Whitehall insiders said on Thursday that they predicted the appointment process to conclude quickly.

The conclusion to employ a new director has emerged in the exact same 7 days that the federal government verified a Sky Information report that it was amending the conditions of an inquiry into the Post Office’s Horizon IT scandal to put it on a statutory footing.

That will give Sir Wyn Williams, the inquiry chairman, powers to compel witnesses to seem, and to hand around documents associated to the probe.

The Write-up Office’s Historic Shortfalls Scheme released past year to permit purposes from present and previous postmasters who feel they endured as a consequence of the Horizon system.

It adopted a team litigation settlement amongst the firm and 555 – largely retired – postmasters.

Nick Read through, the Submit Workplace chief govt, has urged the federal government to present funding for payment.

“The Put up Business office simply just does not have the economical resources to offer meaningful payment,” he reported in a current speech.

“I absolutely understand that govt is eager that Post Office environment ought to be viewed to be repairing its personal mess – and as a result of the work staying carried out across the business enterprise just about every working day to position the requires and interests of postmasters 1st, we are doing just that.

“But monetary compensation commensurate with wrongful conviction is a diverse matter.

“I am urging govt to work with us to find a way of guaranteeing that the funding necessary for this sort of compensation, together with the indicates to get it to these to whom it might turn out to be owed, is arranged as promptly and effectively as feasible.”

A Publish Office spokesman declined to remark.