16th Report - Post Office Horizon scandal: Justice for sub-postmasters

Key findings

• Over 11,300 claimants have received £1.44 billion in redress as of January 2026, but 2,434 individuals remain awaiting full settlement and 1,528 are awaiting initial offers.
• The Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) is fundamentally broken for fully-assessed cases: average processing time is 450 days (2.5× target), and initial offers are routinely undervalued, with examples of awards increasing from £20,000 to £854,000 on appeal.
• Post Office Ltd continues administering HSS despite being responsible for the original miscarriages of justice, undermining victim trust; the Government lacks sufficient resources to transfer complex cases to the Department for Business and Trade.
• Ministry of Justice processes for quashing Horizon convictions contain systemic errors: 37 individuals cannot be traced; 174 received letters requesting information but may be too traumatised to respond; no independent appeals mechanism exists for those denied conviction quashing.
• Fujitsu, whose Horizon system created the scandal, has made no interim payment toward redress and continues securing substantial government contracts; evidence suggests pre-Horizon systems including 'Capture' had similar flaws, potentially affecting hundreds more victims.

Recommendations

• Government should provide funded, up-front legal advice to all Horizon Shortfall Scheme claimants, not just at appeal stage.
• Government should pay the full £600,000 HCRS (Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme) entitlement upfront to eligible individuals rather than staggered interim payments.
• Government should publish outcomes of family redress scheme consultations and define 'close family member' broadly to include parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, and nieces/nephews.
• Government should create an independent appeals mechanism for Ministry of Justice decisions on quashed convictions under the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024.
• Government should seek urgent interim payment from Fujitsu and publish all government contracts with the company.
• Government should legislate to quash Capture-related convictions and urgently investigate the scale of miscarriages of justice linked to pre-Horizon IT systems.
• Post Office Ltd should transfer all remaining complex HSS cases to the Department for Business and Trade with proper resourcing.
• Post Office Ltd should work with trusted partners such as the Restorative Justice Council to conduct trauma-informed outreach to victims not yet engaged with redress.
• Post Office Ltd should conduct comprehensive review of archival records to identify all Horizon-related conviction cases.
• Fujitsu should make substantial interim payment immediately toward the redress bill and commit to significant final contribution reflecting compensation plus interest and costs.
• Fujitsu should extend its moratorium on bidding for new government contracts except where essential for critical public services continuity.

Key actors

Liam Byrne, Post Office Ltd, Fujitsu, Department for Business and Trade, Ministry of Justice, Sir Wyn Williams, Dr Neil Hudgell, Criminal Cases Review Commission