'Minority ethnic Post office operators more likely to have been threatened with suspension than white counterparts'

Post office operators from a minority ethnic background were more likely to have been threatened with suspension than those from a white background, a recent survey of post office operators has found.

As the final phase of the inquiry into the faulty computer system began, the results of a recent survey shows operators are still struggling with bugs in the system, that trust in the organisation is low and that they believe compensation should be higher.

Almost 98 per cent of post office operators who participated in a survey as part of the inquiry into the IT scandal who continue to encounter “discrepancies” with the system have said the issue involved a financial shortfall.

Nearly 70 per cent of the respondents to two anonymous surveys, which were sent to 16,000 post office operators, said they had experienced an “unexplained discrepancy” on the Fujitsu-built IT system since January 2020.

The survey also found that post office operators from a minority ethnic background were more likely to have been threatened with suspension than those from a white background.

In total, 80 of more than 1,000 respondents said that they had been threatened with suspension by the Post Office in the past. Operators from minority ethnic backgrounds were three times more likely to have been suspended and reinstated, YouGov found, The Guardian reported.

The report shows that eight post office operators said they had been suspended, or threatened with suspension, in the past three years after problems with discrepancies with the IT system.

When asked how these discrepancies were typically resolved, almost three-quarters of respondents said they had to use either their branch’s money or their own to resolve the mis-balance.

Most operators said they felt “undervalued” by the Post Office and that it was not trying to improve its relationship with operators.

More than 68 per cent disagreed that the Post Office was professionally managed, 65 per cent said it was not a trustworthy organisation, and 55 per cent disagreed with the statement that it had learned lessons from the scandal.

The survey findings come a week after it emerged that Nick Read, the chief executive of the Post Office who is due to give evidence to the inquiry next month, is to step down next year.

The final phase of the inquiry, which is being chaired by the former high court judge Sir Wyn Williams, is looking into the practices and culture of the Post Office, as well as its delivery of compensation to wrongfully prosecuted post office operators.