Post Office draws up plan to share profits with postmasters
The Post Office is said to be considering plans that would enable postmasters to receive a share of the group’s profits.
In a speech to senior executives last week, boss Nick Read said he wants ministers to approve a restructuring of the network that would create a “partnership of equals” by 2025.
The plans would see potentially thousands of people who run post offices — known as postmasters — receive a financial stake in the company.
“As we look towards the next Comprehensive Spending Review, I intend to work with government on the various means by which we could deliver on a longer-term aspiration to facilitate profit-sharing between Post Office Limited and postmasters when circumstances permit,” Read said in the speech, a copy of which was seen by Sky News.
“As we become commercially sustainable and no longer reliant on government subsidy, looking for new ways to ensure postmasters share fairly in that success is the right thing to do.”
The move, which will need to be approved by the government, comes as the Post Office looks to rebuild its reputation following a scandal that caused dozens of postmasters to be wrongly convicted of fraud.
More than 40 former postmasters, some of whom were jailed or faced bankruptcy, last month began a Court of Appeal challenge to overturn their convictions.
In his speech Read apologised for the scandal, telling bosses: “Our organisation’s historic handling of this matter fell short.”
He added: “I am in no doubt as to the human cost of this.”
However, Read warned that the Post Office could face a hefty compensation bill from the Court of Appeal cases and called for government support to fund it.
“The Post Office simply does not have the financial resources to provide meaningful compensation,” he told colleagues.
“I am urging government to work with us to find a way of ensuring that the funding needed for such compensation, along with the means to get it to those to whom it may become owed, is arranged as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
In 2019 the Post Office agreed to pay almost £58m to settle a lawsuit brought by 550 postmasters.
Read, who has been tasked with turning the group around, has pledged to replace the Horizon IT system that caused the scandal with a “modern, cloud-based” system.
He also said the number of Post Office branches will increase to 12,000 by 2025.