Post Office inquiry: hopes for delivery of good news dwindles

With the hearings in their final phase, there has been less movement on the issues besetting the organisation than might have been hoped

The final phase of the long-running inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal has delved into the current operations and culture at the Post Office, as well as the issue of compensation payments to the hundreds of branch operators who were wrongly prosecuted.

If the expectation was to find an organisation transformed - the reformation of a toxic culture, repair of the broken relations with staff and government and a well-oiled compensation process - testimony has shown that in many respects little, fundamentally, appears to have changed.