Overview

• The consultation opened on July 14, days after the Horizon inquiry’s first volume exposed around 1,000 wrongful prosecutions linked to faulty accounting software.
• Ministers have set aside £118m to fund a transformation plan aimed at safeguarding services such as banking access, passport applications and DVLA transactions.
• The review proposes considering a mutual ownership model to transfer control to subpostmasters once the Post Office achieves financial and operational stability, likely after 2030.
• To improve financial sustainability, the green paper suggests abolishing the 11,500-branch minimum provided full-service access remains within three miles for 99% of the population.
• The consultation period runs until October 6 and will gather input from postmasters, customers and industry stakeholders on the future network and governance structure.