A group of Post Office employees sent a letter to MPs calling for support to deal with the ‘ongoing intolerable leadership and cover up’ at the organisation, it has emerged.
The letter was sent in May and was revealed in evidence during a recent hearing of the long-running Post Office inquiry, which began in 2022 in response to subpostmasters being wrongfully convicted of fraud due to a faulty computer system.
In it, the whistleblowers claim that chief executive Nick Read – who is due to appear before the inquiry later this week – has been overseeing a culture that rewards an inner circle of “favourites”.
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Read was appointed CEO in September 2019 and was brought in to lead a settlement with the group litigants and pave the way for government legislation to exonerate those that were wrongly convicted. He has announced he will step down in March 2025.
The group describe themselves as “highly disenfranchised Post Office employees”, and say that there has been no plan in place to “address the wrongs of the past”.
The letter, seen by Computer Weekly, which first exposed the scandal in 2009, says: “We wish to remain anonymous for no other reason than we do not believe we will be protected by the current regime headed by Nick Read, that he will regard what we have to say as a slight on his own leadership, the result of which will be a dogged campaign to tarnish and remove us from the organisation.
“We have seen this happen too many times, to too many people over the last few years.”
They claim that the Post Office recently conducted a survey of subpostmasters and staff but that they are being denied access to the full results.
They add: “We are deeply frustrated that despite several requests to see the full results we are being denied access. This ongoing cover-up is unacceptable, particularly in the light of the public inquiry and the expectation that things are changing for the better.”
Some employees are receiving preferential treatment, they claim, including expensive legal support for providing evidence to the public inquiry. Some of those involved could be in roles that are a conflict of interests, having historically been in positions that led in some degree to wrongful convictions, they believe.
The whistleblower letter is not the first hint at issues with the workplace culture at the Post Office. Last week, a former finance chief claimed that Read preferred to work with teams of “younger, deferential males”, giving very few senior roles to female colleagues.
Former chief people officer, Jane Davies, has previously accused Read of bullying. He was cleared of the allegations but Davies believes the company misrepresented her whistleblowing evidence.
The Post Office inquiry is now in its final phase and is likely to conclude in November or December. This phase hears from present staff and intends to look at whether lessons have been learned in the current culture of the organisation.
The scandal began some 25 years ago when the Post Office rolled out the Horizon computer system, designed by Fujitsu.
Hundreds of subpostmasters encountered issues with balancing their books due to the system, and a large number were convicted of fraud as a result. Some were wrongly imprisoned, many lost life savings, and there were four suicides.
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