The Post Office (PO) has taken further steps to “reset” its relationship with its partnered retailers, including creating a new subpostmaster board-level position, hiring a new director to oversee the reset and publishing changes to postmaster contracts.

The changes came as the deadline for retailers to submit compensation claims for its historic shortfalls scheme closed. More than 1,300 former and current subpostmasters claimed they were short-changed by errors in the Post Office’s Horizon till system.

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Despite the settlement of litigation last year, where 555 postmasters claimed they were wrongly accused of theft and forced to pay amounts missing due to errors within Horizon, the fallout continues.

Pressure grows on the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) surrounding its backing for the PO’s flawed attempts to remove the trial’s judge, and an ongoing government inquiry into the scandal likely to continue into 2021.

A senior industry source claimed to Better Retailing that details of a new subpostmaster board-level position were leaked to the press by the government last weekend in an attempt to alleviate pressure over BEIS’ involvement in the scandal.

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The new non-executive role on the PO board will be given to a serving subpostmaster “to advocate the interests of more than 8,000 postmasters”.

CWU branch secretary Mark Baker welcomed the move and called for “a proper and open election” to decide which subpostmaster should be appointed.

Declan Salter was also appointed as a new PO director and tasked by chief executive Nick Read with “making sure the mistakes of the past are fairly addressed for the people affected and can never happen again”.

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On the same day as the new hire, the PO admitted to a new system error related to stamps that
had left retailers out of pocket. It said a new compensation system would be announced.

In other attempts to implement the settlement and rulings from last year’s case, the PO published a guide to how the court judgments changed the PO’s subpostmaster contracts. It outlined changes to suspensions, training, negotiations and shortfalls. Baker said the document was being used by the CWU to fight for subpostmasters.

He said: “The PO’s duty to act in good faith explained in these changes can be used to challenge its decision-making. For instance, we’re using it to contest the opening of a new location that would damage the trade of an existing postmaster.”

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