Post Office postmasters can finally appeal their £75,000 Horizon payout, for free, with no risk of losing it. One line in the rules permanently bars anyone who tried that once already and gave up.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
In short. A new permission to appeal process for postmasters who accepted the Horizon Shortfall Scheme's £75,000 fixed sum offer opens on 2 November 2026, with the government calling it "as light touch as possible" [1]. Its own process guide permanently excludes anyone who "previously entered HSSA but later withdrew for any reason" [2], with no exception for why they withdrew, and sets three hard deadlines on claimants while stating no equivalent timeframe for its own decisions. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
More than £1,080 million has now been paid out under the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS), the compensation route for postmasters who were neither convicted nor part of the 2019 group litigation but still covered shortfalls caused by the Post Office's faulty Horizon IT system [3]. Of that, roughly £756 million has gone to more than 10,000 claimants as a flat £75,000 "fixed sum offer" (FSO), the quickest route through the scheme and the one the department has spent years steering people toward [3].
The trouble, as the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry's chair found, is that £75,000 was frequently not enough. The scheme's own process guide explains why a new route exists at all: "Recommendation 9 of Volume 1 of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry's final report advised that postmasters who previously accepted the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) fixed sum offer (FSO) 'should be afforded the opportunity to appeal against their acceptance of such an offer if they are granted permission to do so' by an independent person" [2]. The government's own announcement on 20 May 2026 framed the response as going further still, promising claimants would not "miss out on the full and fair redress they are owed" [1]. Post Office Minister Blair McDougall put it plainly: "Many postmasters lost their livelihoods as a result of this scandal and the least they deserve is to know the redress they received was fair" [1].
The design, on paper, is genuinely generous. The guide states there is "no requirement for you to provide additional evidence other than your written narrative", that expert reports "will not be required, and the department will not provide funding for them" because the department does not want to add burden, and that funded legal advice is available throughout [2]. Crucially, there is no downside to trying: if a claimant is granted permission, moves into the full Horizon Shortfall Scheme Appeals (HSSA) process, and the resulting assessment comes out below £75,000, the guide confirms "you will keep the £75,000 previously paid to you (except in the unlikely event of actual fraud taking place)" [2].
The exclusion that cuts out exactly who the route is for
Set against that generosity is a single line in the eligibility section. A postmaster "will be deemed ineligible" for the new process if "you previously entered HSSA but later withdrew for any reason" [2]. No carve-out is offered for why someone withdrew. Chris Head OBE, the former subpostmaster who has spent years helping claimants through the various redress schemes, explained to journalist Nick Wallis why that group exists at all: claimants "were NOT entitled to upfront legal advice when preparing their initial claim submission, generally led to extremely low and poor offers", and that "without legal knowledge" many "massively undervalued their claims" before later giving up on pursuing them further [4]. Funded legal advice for the FSO process was only confirmed on 20 May 2026 [1]; anyone who abandoned an appeal before that, for exactly the reason Head describes, is permanently shut out of the very route built to correct an under-settlement.
The guide's own illustrative examples of a valid under-settlement claim include lost earnings, loss of a home or business, personal injury and uncredited interest, "non-exhaustive" and open to a case-by-case judgement by an assessor [2]. The one circumstance the guide treats as closed to any judgement at all, with no case-by-case discretion offered anywhere in the document, is a prior withdrawal "for any reason".
No deadline on the side that holds the power
The guide sets three deadlines on claimants to the day: four months to register and complete ID verification once the process opens or a claimant accepts an FSO, whichever is later; a further three months to submit the full application once eligibility is confirmed; and a maximum of one month to provide identity documents once registered [2]. Miss one without "a valid reason for the delay", and "your application for permission to appeal will not be considered" [2].
Nowhere in the same guide is there an equivalent deadline for Dentons, the law firm the department has instructed to run the process, or for the independent assessor, to actually decide a case once it is submitted. A separate target does exist elsewhere in the wider scheme: BIST is "committed to a target of making a first HSSA offer to 90% of claimants within 40 working days of submitting a full claim", and reports hitting 91% as of 30 September 2026 [3]. But that figure measures the HSSA process itself, after a claimant has already been granted permission to appeal. The permission to appeal gateway this guide describes, the registration, eligibility check, Dentons review and possible independent assessor referral that a postmaster must clear first, carries no published turnaround target of its own anywhere in the document.
The claims, tested
| The document's own framing | What the document, or the data, actually shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The process responds to the Inquiry's call for claimants to have "the opportunity to appeal" an undervalued offer, "as light touch as possible" [1] [2] | A single eligibility rule permanently bars anyone who tried the fuller HSSA route before funded legal advice existed and withdrew, "for any reason", with no case-by-case review offered for this exclusion alone [2] | True of the scheme most claimants will use; not true for an unquantified group who already gave up once |
| Claimants face firm, enumerated deadlines, enforced to the day, for every step they must take [2] | No equivalent turnaround deadline is stated anywhere in the same guide for Dentons, the independent assessor, or BIST to decide a permission to appeal application once it is submitted [2] | The document holds claimants to account on dates; it holds itself to account on none |
Credit where due
The scheme's protections for claimants who do get through are real, not cosmetic. There is no financial risk in applying: a claimant who is granted permission and later receives a lower assessment keeps the £75,000 already paid [2]. Legal advice is funded by BIST throughout, not just at the first stage [2], and the narrative claimants must submit is deliberately short, two pages, rather than a demand for the kind of documentary evidence many postmasters no longer hold [2]. The guide is also honest, rather than evasive, about where the Post Office still sits in the process: "the Post Office is not involved in this process beyond providing information which will be considered as part of eligibility checks" [2], a limited role, stated plainly, not buried.
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. The appeal route itself is a real improvement, built in direct response to the Inquiry's own finding that too many postmasters settled for too little, and its no-risk, funded-legal-advice design should make it easier to use than the scheme it corrects. What the guide does not resolve is who it leaves out, and how long it can take. A postmaster who gave up on the harder HSSA route years ago, before funded legal advice existed, for precisely the reason the scheme itself was redesigned to fix, is shut out for good by a single clause with no discretion attached. And a process that enforces every claimant deadline to the day states no equivalent commitment on how long it will take the department's own instructed firm, or its assessors, to decide.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: the eligibility rule excluding anyone who "previously entered HSSA but later withdrew for any reason", with no case-by-case exception offered for that exclusion specifically; and the absence, anywhere in the FSO permission to appeal process guide, of a stated turnaround target for Dentons, BIST or the independent assessor to decide an application, despite three enumerated deadlines placed on claimants. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. The scheme's no-risk design, funded legal advice and honest disclosure of the Post Office's limited remaining role are credited above, not counted against the score. Checked directly against the process guide, the 20 May 2026 launch announcement and the department's own 30 September 2026 redress statistics, all fetched 22 October 2026. The document is tracked in the Daily Register; any revision adding a decision timeframe, or widening the withdrawal exclusion, will get a diff entry.
Sources
- Department for Business and Trade and Blair McDougall MP, "Fixed sum appeals and Shortfall Evidence processes to launch for postmasters who suffered Horizon shortfalls", gov.uk (published 20 May 2026, checked 22 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fixed-sum-appeals-and-shortfall-evidence-processes-to-launch-for-postmasters-who-suffered-horizon-shortfalls
- Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, "Fixed sum offer permission to appeal: process guide", gov.uk (updated 21 October 2026, checked 22 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/horizon-shortfall-scheme-hss-fixed-sum-offer-permission-to-appeal-process/proposed-fixed-sum-offer-permission-to-appeal-process-guide
- Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, "Post Office Horizon financial redress data as of 30 September 2026", gov.uk (updated 16 October 2026, checked 22 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/post-office-horizon-financial-redress-and-legal-costs-data-for-2026/post-office-horizon-financial-redress-data-as-of-30-september-2026
- Nick Wallis, "Another Compensation Scheme Gets Another Appeal Mechanism", Post Office Scandal (published 20 May 2026, checked 22 October 2026). https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/another-compensation-scheme-gets-another-appeal-mechanism/