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The Forfeiture Committee has been told to strip the honours of individuals involved in the Post Office Horizon scandal. This includes former ministers, civil servants, and Post Office and Royal Mail bosses.
A group of Post Office and Royal Mail employees past and present have written to the committee listing the names of individuals who it said “owned, oversaw, governed and ran the Post Office” during the scandal.
The Forfeiture Committee considers cases put to it when the holder of an honour has brought the honours system into disrepute.
So far, the only person that has lost an honour as a result of her part in the Post Office scandal is former CEO Paula Vennells, who had her CBE stripped by King Charles III in February, shortly after ITV’s dramatisation of the scandal shocked the nation.
The anonymous group describes itself as being made up of current and former Royal Mail and Post Office employees who worked alongside the individuals they identify in their letter. Computer Weekly was sent a copy of its letter to the Forfeiture Committee.
In the letter, they wrote: “We are deeply concerned by the testimony given under or to the inquiry, particularly during phases five and seven which has revealed beyond any doubt the incompetence, negligence, restlessness, ethical corruption and wilful blindness (‘not me guv’ attitude) of certain individuals at the heart of Whitehall, all of whom have been bestowed with honours.”
The group described the scandal as a “huge failure of governance, culture, logical decision-making, integrity and business ethics within the government”, adding that “it is now time to hold these individuals responsible to account”.
The group continued: “There can be no better an example of rewards for failure than those who owned, oversaw, governed and ran the Post Office – a taxpayer-funded organisation – and have received honours for their public or related service.
“The Forfeiture Committee, therefore, does not need to wait to consider stripping honours from those other senior individuals responsible for the scandal who have blatantly contravened a range of governance and conduct codes, legal and fiduciary duties at the Nolan principles. Their abject behaviour or failure to act in accordance with these standards has brought the honours systems into disrepute.”
The group asked the Forfeiture Committee to considers the cases of 14 individuals who, it said, “have clearly brought the honours system into disrepute through their flawed actions, glaring emissions and acts of mail, miss or nonfeasance in public office”.
The letter from the anonymous staff past and present is another example of the unhappiness with former leaders within the organisation. A similar damning whistleblower letter was revealed last year. It was sent to the Post Office Horizon scandal public inquiry, describing a culture of lies and cover-up in the Post Office.
The Cabinet Office, which the Forfeiture Committee falls within, did not respond to questions by the time this article was published.
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to the accounting software (see timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal below).
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