The Post Office (PO) remains a ‘toxic’ environment that is still ignoring the needs of its stores, according to scathing criticism from the two branch-elected PO non-executive directors (NEDs). 

Investigating the investigators 

The documents revealed ‘Project Phoenix’, which was supposed to identify current PO employees involved in the unlawful targeting of innocent postmasters in the Horizon scandal. Those identified were to be “potentially removed” from PO. 

However, Jacobs revealed that, out of 23 employees identified as high risk, 11 wished to remain in their current roles, two asked to be “redeployed” elsewhere in the business and 10 opted for voluntary redundancy. 

Ismail claimed that unlike PO’s continued treatment of branch owners accused of wrongdoing, no implicated staff were suspended while investigations took place. 

They added that as of April 2024, the project remained “still not resolved”, leading the NEDs to complain of a “lack of urgency and transparency”. 

Meanwhile, PO’s investigations team, which supported the prosecutions of postmasters, was described as “untouchable” due to the team’s investigations into senior figures including then chief executive Nick Read making it difficult to reform the team. 

The investigations team, itself under scrutiny over its role in the scandal, was alleged to be monitoring PO’s whistleblowing process. Some of the investigations team implicated in the Horizon scandal are also allegedly now working in the redress scheme designed to help victims of the scandal. 

Despite PO promising to change how it looks into alleged shortfalls in the Horizon accounts of branches, Jacobs detailed how he was “interrogated” and accused without full evidence of accounting shortfalls in his branches last year. The “vast majority” of allegations were disproved and the others were never proved. Jacobs warned other branches were unlikely to have the resources or skills to defend themselves.

Post Office chief executive to step down 

Failure to put branch owners first 

Ismail described witnessing a “caste system” at PO with retailers “at the bottom of the pile” and “a level of disdain” towards them. 

While staff were given “bespoke” pay deals and “marked their own work” to inflate bonuses, Ismail said retailers “have not had a real-terms pay increase since 2015”, and instead had pay rates cut on numerous occasions based on “corporate cost challenges” with “total disregard” for retailers’ needs. 

Even at the bottom of the pile, Ismael said there was “two-tier” treatment of retailers, where requests for changes from independent stores were ignored unless pushed by major partners such as WHSmith. 

The NEDs’ views were backed by a YouGov poll of PO branch owners also published last week as part of the inquiry. 

More than half said they were still experiencing unexplained discrepancies linked to the Horizon system, with three quarters plugging the shortfalls from their own funds. A majority said PO is untrustworthy, failing to learn from the past and does not understand their concerns. 

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Fears for the future 

The NEDs described the already delayed replacement for the Horizon system, NBIT, stating they had “grave concerns” about the viability and timescales of the project, with problems being ‘‘understated by the board”. 

They added that their calls for key retailer features such as a retail sales button, dual log-ins and customer-facing screens had been ignored due to cost concerns. 

Despite clear benefits to retailers, calls for self-service terminals were also met with disinterest. 

The NED positions are up for re-election, but both Elliot and Ismail have been disqualified from standing. 

Both said this amounted to gerrymandering by PO based on technicalities, in response to their being “too challenging, inquisitive and asking too many awkward questions”. 

A PO spokesperson told Better Retailing it would not be commenting “outside of the inquiry”, adding: “Hearing directly from former and current postmasters is an important part of [the inquiry]. 

“We are determined to learn lessons from the past and improve the organisation.” 

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