The Department for Work and Pensions will launch an independent review into its handling of prosecutions against Post Office staff, Sky News has learned.
About 100 prosecutions were carried out by the DWP between 2001 and 2006 during the Horizon IT scandal.
The “independent assurance review”, however, is yet to be commissioned and will not look at individual cases.
It comes more than a year after Sky News discovered joint investigations between the Post Office and the DWP during the scandal – leading to suggestions some may be “tainted”.
Hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongfully convicted of stealing by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015, due to the faulty Horizon IT system.
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The DWP told Sky News they have “committed” to commissioning the review into prosecutions led by the department, where Post Office staff were investigated for “welfare-related fraud”.
They described cases as “complex investigations” which they said were “backed by evidence including filmed surveillance, stolen benefit books and witness statements”.
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They also added that “to date no documentation has been identified showing that Horizon data was essential to these prosecutions”.
The review will look at a period of time spanning 20 years covered by the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024, from September 1996 to December 2018.
The Horizon Act was effectively blanket exoneration legislation which automatically quashed Post Office convictions but did not include DWP or Capture-related prosecutions.
The family of Roger Allen, who was convicted in 2004 of stealing pension payments by the DWP and sentenced to six months in prison, are “frustrated” the review won’t look at his or other cases.
Mr Allen died in March last year, still trying to clear his name.
Keren Simpson, his daughter, describes the review as a “development” but a “fob off”.
“I think it’s just getting us off their backs,” she said, “I’ll believe it when I see it because they’re not taking any accountability.
“They’re not acknowledging anything. They’re denying everything.
“No one’s saying, look, we really need to dig in and have a look at all these cases to see if there’s the same pattern here.”
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Mr Allen pleaded guilty to spare his wife – after his lawyer told him in a letter that there had been “an indication from the Crown that they may discontinue the proceedings against Mrs Allen were you minded to plead guilty”.
Despite the Criminal Cases Review Commission deciding Mr Allen had grounds to appeal against his conviction, it was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2021.
The independent review will look at the “methodology and processes” used by the DWP, and the “thoroughness and adequacy” of efforts to obtain case documents.
The DWP say that the review won’t be commenting on individual cases or those that have been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
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Potential reviewers will also be approached with experience “outside of the civil service”.
They will be asked to produce a report with recommendations for any further actions within six months of starting their review.
Lawyer Neil Hudgell, instructed by some of those prosecuted, described the review as “wholly inadequate”, saying the DWP “should not be marking its own homework.”
“Any involvement in the process of appointing reviewers undermines all confidence in the independence of the process,” he added.
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He also criticised the DWP’s statement as “strikingly defensive and closed minded”.
“It cannot be anything approaching rigorous or robust without a proper case by case review of all affected cases, including those dismissed by the Court of Appeal.”
He said that where hundreds of convictions were quashed “at the stroke of a pen” a proper and “targeted” review is “the least these poor victims are owed.”
“At the moment there is a widespread feeling among the group that they have been “left behind and that is both legally and morally wrong.”
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A Freedom of Information request to the Department of Work and Pensions by Sky News has also found that most cases they prosecuted involved encashment of stolen benefit payment order books.
In response to questions over how many prosecutions involved guilty pleas with no trial, the DWP said the information had been destroyed “in accordance with departmental records management practices” and in line with data protection.
