Option among those explored, as state-owned body looks to recover £12m a year written off over Horizon scandal

The Post Office is looking into the possibility of creating a “losses pool”, funded by branch owner-operators, as it seeks to address the mounting financial issue of shortfalls in its network of 11,500 outlets.

Following damning high court judgments in 2019, which ultimately resulted in hundreds of postmasters being exonerated over wrongful prosecutions for shortfalls linked to faulty Horizon software, the Post Office pursues losses only if there is an agreement with the branch owner-operator.

Henry Staunton tells inquiry Post Office and government ‘dragged their feet’ on compensation for Horizon IT failures

The former chair of the Post Office has told a public inquiry there was no interest at all in the exoneration of post office operators at the state-owned body, arguing it and the government “dragged their feet” making compensation payments.

Henry Staunton, who was sacked by the former business secretary Kemi Badenoch in January, said that his first impression upon taking up the role in late 2022 was there wasn’t an acceptance among management of the conclusions of damning high court judgments that the Post Office had been wrong to pursue prosecutions.

Margot James says she should have ‘delved more closely’ as Post Office developed legal defence of Horizon system

A former postal minister has said it was a mistake for the government not to step in as Post Office executives developed their ultimately unsuccessful legal defence of the flawed Horizon IT system against a lawsuit brought by branch owner-operators.

Margot James, who held the role from mid-2016 to early 2018 when Sir Alan Bates and 554 other prosecuted post office operators brought the case to clear their names, told the public inquiry into the IT system she should not have stuck to the line adopted by the executives and UK Government Investments, the body that manages state-owned assets.

George Thomson tells inquiry he was ‘too trusting’ of Post Office bosses about faulty Horizon IT system

The former leader of an association representing post office operators has told a public inquiry that he was “too trusting” of information given by the Post Office about its faulty Horizon IT system, but he denied being “too close” to the state-owned body and “betraying” his own membership.

George Thomson, a former general secretary of the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP), an association that represents post office operatives, was testifying to a public inquiry that is examining why hundreds of operatives were prosecuted after the Post Office blamed them for financial shortfalls. It has since emerged that the Post Office’s Horizon IT system was not reliable and contained bugs, errors and defects.

Former chief executive of the Post Office says she does not think there was a conspiracy but that mistakes were made

• Key questions Paula Vennells must answer

Paula Vennells has made an opening statement at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry where she apologised to the victims of the scandal and offered to stand outside the old Post Office of one of the victims with them to explain to people what happened and what they went through. She said she had been deeply affected by victim impact statements heard by the inquiry.

She said:

I would just like to say, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this, how sorry I am for all that subpostmasters and their families and others who suffered as a result of all of the matters that the inquiry has been looking into for so long.

I followed and listened to all of the human impact statements, and I was very affected by them. I remember listening to one subpostmaster whose name I noted, who said that he would like somebody to go and stand outside his old Post Office with him so he could tell them exactly what he’d been through. I would do that.

David Miller, then chief operating officer, tells inquiry he does not remember 1999 meeting in which comment was made

A former Post Office executive has told a public inquiry that he “should not have said” to its board that the Horizon IT system was “robust and fit for purpose” and agreed there had been a “missed opportunity” to investigate post office operators’ concerns.

David Miller, who retired in 2006 as chief operating officer of Post Office, had been told of problems with Horizon when he held meetings with post office operators in June 1999, the inquiry into the scandal has heard.

James Arbuthnot says concerns about reliability of faulty Horizon computer system were ‘brushed off’

• UK politics – latest updates

A former MP has told a public inquiry that the Post Office appeared to have been operating a “behind-the-scenes deception process” about the reliability of its faulty Horizon computer system.

James Arbuthnot, who is now a Conservative peer, began campaigning for post office operators in 2009 after taking up the case of Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly convicted of theft.