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POST OFFICE HORIZON IT
INQUIRY
Private and confidential Post Office Horizon IT
Inquiry
Horizon Compensation Advisory Board 5™ Floor Aldwych House
Secretariat: Department for Business and Trade 71-91 Aldwych
1 Victoria Street London
London WC2B 4HN
SW1H OET
Your ref:
25 August 2023
Dear Prof Hodges,
Re: Initial report on compensation
Thank you for your letter of 15 August 2023, particularly the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board
(“HCAB”) comments on the recommendations in my Interim Report on Compensation. The purpose
of this letter is to respond to matters you have raised including your offer for a meeting mentioned in
HCAB's minutes of 31 July 2023.
In response to the recommendations in paragraph 139 of my Interim Report, you expressed the
difficulties HCAB are likely to experience should it intervene in individual cases. For the avoidance
of doubt, it was not my intention for HCAB to investigate all individual cases, but to be provided with
the mandate to review any case where it is necessary to do so, principally to ensure there is fairness
in the operation of the compensate schemes as a whole. Without having the ability to review
individual cases, it is my view that it may not be possible for HCAB properly to advise Ministers on
the fairness of the compensation schemes pursuant to HCAB's Terms of Reference. As you say, it
is for the Minister to respond to my recommendations, and I await the Minister’s response to my
recommendations.
I note HCAB's views on the position of convicted sub-postmasters and sub-mistresses (“SPMs”)
whose convictions remain overturned. As you will be aware, the Inquiry’s Phase 4 hearings, which
concern criminal investigations and proceedings against SPMs, has commenced. The hearings,
which are currently paused for the Summer break, will restart on 19 September, and end in
December 2023. Following the completion of the Inquiry’s evidence gathering exercise, I will set out
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my findings and recommendations on all matters I have investigated, including criminal actions
against SPMs, in my final report.
Insofar as the offer for a private meeting is concerned, I do not think it would be appropriate, as the
Chair of a public statutory inquiry, to accept your offer. Save for where I am required to hold private
hearings pursuant to section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005, I am expected to conduct inquiry related
matters in public. Additionally, it is likely that I shall be asking you, as the Chair of the HCAB, to
provide written and oral evidence, which is another reason why a private meeting would in my view
not be appropriate.
Yours sincerely
Sir Wyn Williams
Chair
Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry