Post Office scandal: More corporate malignance without consequence

Corporate apologies for the treatment of subpostmasters ring hollow when no tangible responsibility is taken by leadership

Around this time of year is when I’d usually see my uncle. Our families saw each other more often when I was younger, but as often happens when children age into early adulthood, big family gatherings became a less frequent occasion, reserved for the festive season.

This year we’d have plenty to talk about. Liverpool’s magnificent season, leading the Premier League, lifting their sixth European Cup. He’d been an avid fan of the club ever since painting the famous red kit on his Subbuteo figures as a kid. Ben Stokes winning Sports Personality of the Year, having propelled England to a thrilling first Cricket World Cup title. My uncle was a cricket man through-and-through; his proudest moments were seeing his daughter capped for England and son in their club’s first team. Over a glass of port after Christmas dinner we might debate which partnership should open the batting against South Africa, or Jürgen Klopp’s current XI versus Bob Paisley’s in ’77.

But we won’t.

On Monday, after a fight that dates back over ten years, the High Court ruled in favour of subpostmasters who the Post Office had wrongfully accused of theft and fraud. The subpostmasters had always protested that shortfalls in their accounts were the result of a faulty IT system, but the Post Office denied this for years. Rather than investigating the Horizon software, it held the subpostmasters responsible. Over a thousand were affected, many lost their jobs and were forced to pay back large sums from their own pocket.

My uncle was one of them. After 14 years running a respected post office, an upgrade to Horizon started to cause discrepancies. Told by the Post Office to pay up, he drained his savings and future inheritance for four years until 2013 when, on the brink of dismissal and driven into a deep depression, he took his own life.

My uncle was the person in our family most similar to me, with his geeky obsession over sport statistics, cocky trivia knowledge, and love of historical dates and events. Not being able to share these into adulthood is my loss, but it’s a minor fragment of that suffered by his children, wife, parents and sister (my mother), a pain I cannot claim to comprehend.

The Post Office hasn’t even tried.

Just days before the High Court ruled against it, the Post Office settled its dispute with over 500 subpostmasters, agreeing to pay them £58m. After years of fighting — including two separate trials, an appeal, and a failed attempt to remove a High Court judge — the Post Office conveniently announced the settlement in a general election dominated news week. Buried within the press release is an apology so unconvincing it might as well have been penned by Mark Zuckerberg. Allow me to interpret its PR guff.

“The Post Office is committed to applying the lessons it has learnt.”

It took a decade of ignoring subpostmasters’ concerns, and over £23m of public money on legal fees, while we knew there were “high risk” issues with our computer system for the Post Office to “learn” any lessons.

“In the past, we have fallen short.”

We didn’t “fall short”, we falsely claimed subpostmasters stole hundreds of thousands in shortfalls, for which many were convicted and several imprisoned.

“In the past, we got things wrong in our dealings with postmasters and we look forward to moving ahead now.”

We didn’t just “get things wrong”. Starting Roberto Firmino on the bench is “getting things wrong”. We ruined people’s livelihoods and drove them to contemplate suicide. At least one them cannot “move ahead now”.

Throughout most of the Horizon scandal, Paula Vennells was Post Office CEO. Company emails from 2015 unsealed during the trial revealed she sought an advantageous answer on whether Horizon could be accessed remotely, saying “I need to say no it is not possible”, years after publicly stating confidence in the system.

At no point under Vennells’s leadership did the Post Office — a publicly owned company, run for a “social purpose” and the nation’s self-described “most trusted brand” — inform my uncle or others that they weren’t alone, that others had experienced similar issues, that there may be recourse for their defence. While she was drawing 25 times the average salary, Vennells’s business was pilfering their life savings and pushing them into crisis. Has she now resigned in disgrace? Early this year she received a CBE for services to the Post Office before being named chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

It’s a depressingly familiar script. Following the collapse of RBS and its £45bn public bailout, many of its directors left for other high paying executive roles with six-figure payoffs. After selling BHS for £1, Philip Green avoided a boardroom ban and seems set to retain his knighthood despite precipitating the firm’s failure, costing 11,000 jobs and imperilling many more pensions. Before Thomas Cook entered liquidation, jeopardising 22,000 jobs and leaving government to repatriate over 150,000 holidaymakers, its bosses paid themselves £50m, of which just 2 percent will be recovered.

Time after time, its workers and customers who face the consequences and taxpayers who pick up the pieces, while those responsible slink off into the distance, bonus in hand, to the next seven-figure salary or prestigious board position. This signifies a rot at the core of the country’s commercial institutions, a corrosion metastasising across the heart of ‘UK plc’. When corporate governance causes such harm and suffering without any detectable remorse or responsibility, it crosses the line from negligence into malignance.

What can be done? In October, the FT joined the US Business Roundtable in calling for a more responsible capitalism, imploring corporate leadership to broaden its remit beyond shareholders to stakeholders. US presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has called for more worker representation on boards. Labour’s manifesto contained a similar plan, while the idea was even once on Theresa May’s radar.

The least we can do is support independent journalism which holds corporations to account. We’re indebted to Nick Wallis’s crowdfunded efforts, ComputerWeekly’s diligent reporting, and Private Eye’s coverage for shining a light on the subpostmasters’ plight.

Ultimately though, until corporate leaders are seen to be taking tangible responsibility for malfeasance on their watch, their apologies will continue to ring hollow around empty chairs at Christmas dinner.  ⬢

This article was published in the Independent.