#PostOfficeScandal #NFSP
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SUBPOSTMASTERS: A VERY GENEROUS ARRANGEMENT
Or: How To Spend £30 Million of Public Money Buying Silence and Call It "Representation"
The National Federation of Subpostmasters — that fearless champion of the nation's Sub-Postmasters which, when its members were being wrongly prosecuted, bankrupted and imprisoned, bravely... checks notes... did absolutely NOTHING.
This, it transpires, was not mere incompetence but contractual obligation. The NFSP's 2015 Grant Funding Agreement with Post Office Limited — a snip at £30 million-plus of publicly-backed funds over 15 years — contained "restrictive covenants" prohibiting media campaigns, public protests, funding litigation, or indeed any behaviour "materially detrimental" to Post Office interests.
An organisation nominally representing Sub-Postmasters was contractually forbidden from representing Sub-postmasters. One imagines the irony was lost on nobody except the NFSP's leadership.
Mr Justice Fraser was characteristically direct, finding the NFSP "not remotely independent of the Post Office" and noting it had "put its own members' interests well below its own."
A 2013 email from then-General Secretary George Thomson rather gave the game away: "If necessary, NFSP will drop Union badge to sign contract."
The badge duly dropped. The cheques duly cleared.
THE PROCUREMENT QUESTION NOBODY ASKED
The agreement was styled as a "grant" — conveniently sidestepping the competitive tendering requirements of public procurement law.
Yet the Post Office wasn't dispensing charity. It was purchasing two very specific services: (1) professional representation of its network; and (2) guaranteed organisational silence. That, in any rational analysis, is a public services contract requiring open competition under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
No advertisement. No tender. No competition. No transparency. Just a quiet arrangement between paymasters and the paid.
THE VALUE FOR MONEY QUESTION
Which brings us to the matter HM Treasury and/or the Public Accounts Committee might wish to examine with some urgency.
Post Office Limited is government-owned. This was effectively public money. Did spending £30 million-plus to fund an organisation contractually prevented from challenging Post Office decisions — during a period when those decisions were destroying innocent lives — represent value for money?
Does it satisfy Treasury rules on Managing Public Money, which require that expenditure achieves "good value for the Exchequer as a whole"?
Or did the British taxpayer unwittingly bankroll the institutional gagging of the very people who needed a voice most?
THE DEMOCRACY QUESTION
The NFSP's constitution, meanwhile, prevents ordinary members from voting directly — requiring instead "board-approved intermediaries," with Directors retaining absolute veto power.
Former National Executive Officer Mark Baker called this arrangement "nothing more than a sham." It would take a braver commentator than this one to disagree.
THE EXISTENTIAL QUESTION
The Procurement Act 2023 will finally require competitive tendering for Sub-Postmaster representation.
The NFSP must now compete on merit — a novel experience for an organisation whose primary qualification was its willingness not to rock the boat while it sank.
Sub-Postmasters deserved a representative body that would fight for them. They got one contractually bound to silence.
The invoice, naturally, went to the taxpayer.
PS. Note the magnaminous advice below assisting
@PostOffice in their fight against 555 SubPostmasters in the Bates vs. The Post Office GLO Litigation. 🤷♂️
@NFSP_UK @voiceofthePM @CWUnews @CWUPostmasters @CWUPostmaster @CommonsBTC @liambyrnemp @CommonsPAC @hmtreasury @RachelReevesMP @darrenpjones @DavidDavisMP @premnsikka @UKHouseofLords @HouseofCommons @NigelRailton @PostOfficeNews @marksweney @Karlfl @BBCEmmaSimpson