Post Office transformation effort gets £118m funding boost

Efforts to crook astir the crisis-hit Post Office person been fixed a £118m backing boost arsenic the authorities continues to see a caller ownership structure.

Sky News revealed successful October past year, arsenic the Horizon IT scandal enquiry neared its conclusion, that a government-commissioned reappraisal was to research the thought of a mutual model.

It would efficaciously spot ownership transferred from the authorities to sub-postmasters, creating a John Lewis Partnership-style structure, if specified an enactment was to beryllium followed through.

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It's being considered arsenic a mode to instrumentality nationalist and postmaster spot to the Post Office.

The options are to beryllium the taxable of a 12 week consultation connected the organisation's future.

The caller £118m subsidy bundle was being made available, the Department for Business and Trade said, to money the translation program and further investment.

"This backing volition support cardinal services, including entree to currency deposits and withdrawals arsenic good arsenic cardinal authorities services, specified arsenic passport applications and the DVLA, alongside helping the Post Office present cost-saving measures successful its Transformation Plan, portion of the New Deal for Postmasters", the connection said.

Post Office curate Gareth Thomas added: "Post Offices proceed to beryllium a cardinal portion of our precocious streets and communities crossed the country.

"However, aft 15 years without a due review, and successful the aftermath of the Horizon scandal, it's wide we request a caller imaginativeness for its future.

"This Green Paper marks the commencement of an honorable speech astir what radical privation and request from their Post Office successful the years ahead."

But the wide caput of the Communication Workers Union, Dave Ward, accused the section of lacking sincerity.

He responded: "Successive governments person failed the Post Office, its workers and customers - and choosing to usage authorities subsidies for planned redundancies, closures and alleged translation plans that are thing much than managed decline.

"This Labour Government are unashamedly doing precisely the aforesaid arsenic the Tories did - managing the authorities of the Post Office, prioritising further cost-cutting and offering nary imaginativeness for its future."

The update was provided arsenic sub-postmasters await further conclusions from the Horizon IT inquiry.

The first volume, published past week, highlighted the interaction of mendacious theft and mendacious accounting accusations made against astatine slightest 1,000 postmasters.

It concluded that 13 radical whitethorn person taken their ain lives aft being falsely accused of wrongdoing, based connected grounds from the IT strategy that the Post Office and developers Fujitsu knew could beryllium faulty.

At the aforesaid time, enquiry seat Sir Wyn Williams recommended further enactment to amended compensation outcomes amid years of vexation implicit delays and wrangling implicit the sums due.