The Post Office has been issued with a remaining probability to submit an 80-page investigation into chief govt Nick Read’s conduct earlier than a committee of MPs look to formally summon the report.
After a variety of lapsed deadlines to offer the report, the government-owned enterprise was advised by the Business and Trade Committee chair it had a deadline of 9am on Tuesday morning.
If it was not submitted by then, the committee warned it will focus on formally summoning the doc, an occasionally used and restricted energy retained by MP committees when they’re unsuccessful of their regular requests.
It has not been disclosed if the deadline was met.
But a Post Office spokesperson mentioned: “We can confirm our senior independent director on the board, Ben Tidswell, has written to the Business and Trade Select Committee this morning regarding their request for a document.”
The existence of the report got here as a bombshell final week.
It had been thought that the previous Post Office chairman Henry Staunton, sacked earlier this yr by enterprise secretary Kemi Badenoch, had been topic to investigation.
But on the committee listening to final week, Mr Staunton mentioned he was solely talked about in a single paragraph and the report was “a big investigation into Nick”.
The report was compiled by a former human sources (HR) director and whistle-blower and mentioned Mr Read threatened to resign as a result of he was sad together with his pay and made accusations of bullying. According to a Sunday Times report, Mr Read sought a £1.1m pay bundle.
Mr Read has denied he made resignation threats.
Sub-postmaster victims of the Post Office’s defective Horizon software program have been searching for redress after a whole bunch had been convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud and plenty of extra misplaced their companies and had been in monetary and private damage after the Fujitsu-built accounting software program wrongfully documented financial shortfalls.
The postmasters’ battle for justice had been more and more overshadowed by company wrangling of the Post Office.
Read extra:
Who is Henry Staunton, the City grandee who took on Kemi Badenoch?
After he was faraway from his put up, Mr Staunton mentioned he had been advised by the Department for Business and Trade to decelerate the processing of compensation.
In paperwork solely obtained by Sky News, he referred to as for the Post Office to be “removed completely” from the compensation course of and for it to be put underneath the management of postmasters as a result of “deep dysfunction” inside the organisation.
It’s understood the chair of the Business and Trade Committee, Labour MP Liam Byrne, requested the HR investigation be despatched to the committee by final Thursday, and when the deadline handed, by Monday afternoon.
Source: information.sky.com”