DWP evaluation of Put up Workplace employee prosecutions but to begin, months after announcement
The Division for Work and Pensions (DWP) has but to formally launch its evaluation of prosecutions of subpostmasters, regardless of it being introduced in August 2025, and has but to nominate a reviewer.
Attorneys representing former subpostmasters are usually not ready round, because the DWP “drags its toes” and have circumstances “lined up” for the Prison Instances Evaluate Fee to evaluation.
Within the aftermath of the Put up Workplace Horizon scandal hitting the headlines and the overturning of subpostmaster convictions based mostly on information from the Put up Workplace’s Horizon system, the federal government division introduced a evaluation of its personal prosecutions of subpostmasters.
The “unbiased assurance evaluation”, because it was described by the DWP, will have a look at prosecutions between 1996 and 2018. However Neil Hudgell, lawyer at Hudgell Solicitors, which represents tons of of Put up Workplace scandal victims, mentioned the DWP is “dragging its toes” and his legislation agency is pursuing its personal investigations on behalf of shoppers, already having “a few circumstances lined up” to ship to the CCRC.
“We’ve unearthed some fascinating issues that we predict influence the protection of convictions, so we’re not ready round on DWP themselves,” mentioned Hudgell. “Somebody must lean on the DWP, as a result of it’s not adequate. [The longer it takes] the extra suspicion subpostmasters have that there’s one thing to cover.”
Round 100 subpostmasters and workers had been prosecuted by the DWP with assist from the Put up Workplace. The DWP mentioned it has recovered materials and reviewed circumstances, however has to date has not discovered proof that Horizon information was utilized by it to prosecute subpostmasters or department workers.
Polluted prosecutions
Focus turned on the DWP after the Put up Workplace Horizon controversy hit the mainstream following the ITV drama in regards to the scandal, which noticed tons of of subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted following account shortfalls. These discrepancies had been brought on by errors within the Put up Workplace’s Horizon system utilized in branches and effected hundreds of subpostmasters. Greater than 700 subpostmaster convictions, which had been based mostly on information from Horizon, had been overturned en masse by an act of Parliament in Could 2024.
The DWP labored with the Put up Workplace on its subpostmaster prosecutions, and it has emerged that prosecutions of individuals utilizing varied techniques at Put up Workplace branches is also flawed. The CCRC now refers to circumstances based mostly on a number of applied sciences as “pre-Horizon appeals”, such is the number of techniques concerned.
The DWP mentioned prosecutions had been associated to fraudulent exercise on the DWP cost mechanisms equivalent to order ebook fraud, however Hudgell has said that “all prosecutions involving the Put up Workplace are polluted and must be checked out”.
In an replace, a DWP spokesperson instructed Pc Weekly: “We introduced an unbiased assurance evaluation the place Put up Workplace members of workers had been prosecuted by the Division for welfare-related fraud. Over the previous few years, we now have taken complete steps to recuperate materials and evaluation all related circumstances. Thus far, no documentation has been recognized to point out that Horizon information was important to any DWP prosecutions.”
The DWP mentioned it is not going to evaluation prison convictions.
James Arbuthnot, who campaigned for justice for subpostmasters for almost twenty years, mentioned the Horizon Advisory Board, of which he’s a member, has met the DWP relating to its evaluation: “We strongly consider they ought to take a look at particular person circumstances and, in the intervening time, they’re saying they don’t seem to be going to try this. Until they do, we predict the evaluation will likely be pointless they usually may as nicely not do it.”
For the reason that announcement in August final yr, the DWP expanded scope to provide the people or organisations the chance to supply data to the unbiased reviewer. The federal government division mentioned the evaluation will take six months as soon as it begins and it’s presently within the means of appointing a reviewer.
The Put up Workplace Horizon scandal was first uncovered by Pc Weekly in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered resulting from accounting software program (see beneath timeline of all Pc Weekly articles in regards to the Horizon scandal, since 2009).
