The Post Office’s decision to sign a £2.4 million crisis PR contract while continuing to fight legal claims from Horizon scandal victims raises serious questions about priorities. (Sky News)

At a time when many former sub-postmasters are still waiting for full compensation, public funds are apparently being directed toward reputation management rather than resolving victims’ claims quickly and fairly.

This matters because the Horizon scandal is not a conventional corporate dispute. It is one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern British history. Hundreds of people were prosecuted, financially ruined and publicly disgraced because of failures the Post Office now accepts should never have happened.

Against that backdrop, spending millions on PR advisers looks profoundly tone deaf.

No organisation facing a scandal of this magnitude can avoid scrutiny. But there is a difference between communicating transparently and spending taxpayers’ money on strategic image management while victims remain uncompensated.

The reputational damage to the Post Office was never caused solely by faulty software. It was caused by years of denial, delay and institutional defensiveness. Continuing to prioritise litigation strategy and public relations over swift compensation risks reinforcing exactly the same criticisms.

The public is unlikely to be persuaded by polished messaging while former sub-postmasters are still fighting for justice.

If the Post Office genuinely wants to rebuild trust, the priority should be obvious — compensate victims fully now and stop wasting public money trying to manage the optics of a scandal that should have been resolved years ago.