Thousands of postmasters in Britain would be given a financial stake in the Post Office under plans drawn up by its chief executive.
Nick Read, who has run the Post Office since 2019, told senior colleagues last week that the government should consider proposals to turn the retail network into a profit-sharing business.
“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, 55, said in a speech first reported 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.
“For [the] Post Office to be in a position, say by 2025, to make this a credible option for postmasters, their customers and the government would, it seems to me, represent a genuine achievement.”
The Post Office is seeking to overhaul its image in the wake of a scandal. The company agreed to pay £58 million in 2019 to settle with postmasters over a computer glitch that wrongly suggested they had committed fraud. Some were wrongly imprisoned.
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Read told staff that the Horizon IT system at the centre of the controversy would be replaced “in favour of a modern, cloud-based system which postmasters will find more intuitive and easier to operate . . . Our organisation’s historic handling of this matter fell short. I am in no doubt as to the human cost of this.”
There are about 2,500 unresolved cases of Post Office employees claiming recompense and the total bill is expected to be “significant”. Read said that he would seek government support to fund the compensation bill.
The Post Office, which has about 11,500 branches, handles letters and parcels for Royal Mail. Its other main businesses are cash and banking, payment services for households settling bills and travel, including holiday currency. Earnings for last year were likely to be “less than half” of the £86 million achieved in 2019-20, Read said.
