Post Offices: ICT

(asked on 29th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether a Ministerial Direction was ever sought by his Department's Accounting Officer on the regularity, propriety, value for money or feasibility in respect of spending incurred by Post Office Limited during its Horizon IT system litigation case.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 7th October 2020

No Ministerial Direction was sought on this matter. Post Office Limited (POL) handled the defence of the Group Litigation as operational matters are an exclusive responsibility for the Company, as outlined in the Framework Document.

All costs in doing so, including legal costs and the settlement in December 2019, were paid using funds from POL’s commercial revenue. BEIS sought and received assurance throughout the process that no public funding was used to contest the litigation.

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