‘Utter insanity’ as Publish Workplace paid regulation agency double the price of scandal public inquiry

Taxpayers paid one authorized agency double the quantity in charges to characterize the Publish Workplace within the Horizon scandal statutory public inquiry than they paid for the precise inquiry.

The publicly owned Publish Workplace paid Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) £86m for companies associated to its illustration at Publish Workplace scandal public inquiry between 2000 and 2025. In the meantime, based on the general public inquiry’s monetary statements, the whole value between 2000 and 2024 was round £48m. The general public inquiry monetary assertion that covers 2025 has not but been printed.

A response to a freedom of knowledge request from campaigner identified on X as Monsieur Cholet revealed that from 2020 as much as and together with 2025, the Publish Workplace spent £83m with HSF for help because the authorized consultant of the Publish Workplace on the public inquiry, and £3m on its help for Publish Workplace witnesses with their statements to the inquiry.

Campaigning former subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates stated: “It’s utter insanity {that a} publicly owned company is allowed to waste a lot public cash on making an attempt to justify its years of incompetence and mismanagement and canopy the backs of its executives who all gave the impression to be affected by company amnesia.”

He referred to as for a authorities investigation into the spending: “It ought to now be a matter of urgency for the Public Accounts Committee to analyze all, and particularly the authorized, prices related to the Horizon Scandal from when Publish Workplace first began to cowl up the reality, i.e. the day they signed the primary contract with Fujitsu.”

For comparability, whereas HSF was paid £86m for its companies to the Publish Workplace to help the general public inquiry, in your complete public inquiry to this point the skilled charges and the salaries of inquiry chair and assessors, secretariat, authorized crew and counsel value £18m. Scandal victims, who’re core members within the inquiry, had authorized charges paid, which added as much as about £10m.

The general public inquiry started in 2021 and has seen seven phases of proof gathering. In July, when publishing his first report inquiry, chair Wyn Williams stated he couldn’t rule out the “actual risk” that 13 folks took their very own lives because of their therapy by the Publish Workplace.

Laptop Weekly requested The Division of Enterprise and Commerce, which owns the Publish Workplace, whether or not the taxpayer funds paid to HSF for its work on the inquiry are justified. It stated it might not remark as a result of it is a matter for the Publish Workplace.

The Publish Workplace was additionally requested whether or not the extent of funding was justified, but it surely had not responded when this text was printed.

In complete, the Publish Workplace paid HSF £188m from Sept 2014 to March 2025. This included £72m for its involvement within the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, which was set as much as compensate subpostmasters affected by the scandal.

Individually, final month it emerged that the Metropolitan Police lead investigation into the Publish Workplace scandal, Operation Olympos, will value round £50m.

The Publish Workplace scandal was first uncovered by Laptop Weekly in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered as a result of Horizon accounting software program, which led to essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past (see under timeline of Laptop Weekly articles concerning the scandal since 2009).