There is perhaps no figure in modern Britain whose authority on questions of justice and compensation carries greater weight than Sir Alan Bates. For more than two decades, he pursued a campaign that many considered unwinnable, refusing to accept official assurances and institutional denials as he fought to expose what would eventually be recognised as one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. His persistence not only vindicated hundreds of wrongly accused sub-postmasters but also forced politicians, regulators and the wider public to confront profound failures at the heart of both the Post Office and the state itself.

It is therefore striking that Bates has now turned his attention to the very compensation schemes established to remedy those injustices.

Appearing before MPs last week, Bates delivered a devastating assessment of the arrangements designed to compensate Horizon victims, describing them as an “utter disaster” and expressing frustration at a process that, in his view, has become bogged down in bureaucracy, delay and procedural complexity. His criticism was not simply directed at individual decisions or administrative shortcomings. Rather, it reflected a broader concern that a system ostensibly designed to deliver justice has instead become another obstacle standing between victims and the compensation they were promised.

While his comments were made in the specific context of the Post Office scandal, they deserve to be considered far more widely because they raise uncomfortable questions about a trend that has become increasingly embedded in British public life – the assumption that whenever a major scandal occurs, the answer must be a larger compensation scheme, a more elaborate redress mechanism or an expanded framework for collective claims.

Over the past decade, Britain has witnessed the steady growth of what might be described as a compensation culture built around the belief that justice can be engineered through increasingly sophisticated systems of claims management and collective redress. Politicians announce compensation packages, lawyers organise claimants, administrators establish assessment frameworks and governments create oversight structures intended to reassure the public that lessons have been learned and wrongs will be put right.

Yet what Bates’ intervention highlights is the gap that often exists between the theory of compensation and the reality of delivering it.

The Horizon scandal should, in many respects, have represented the ideal circumstances for a compensation programme. There was widespread agreement about the existence of wrongdoing. The victims were identifiable. Public sympathy was overwhelming. Political support for compensation was virtually universal. There was no meaningful constituency arguing that former sub-postmasters should be denied redress.

And yet, despite those unusually favourable conditions, the process has become characterised by disputes over valuation, complaints about delays and continuing dissatisfaction among many of those it was established to help.

That fact alone should give pause to those who argue that broader collective redress mechanisms inevitably produce better outcomes.

If a compensation scheme operating under intense parliamentary scrutiny and benefiting from near-unanimous public support can struggle to command confidence among claimants, what does that suggest about the prospects for the growing number of collective actions and mass claims now being pursued across a wide range of sectors?

The answer is not necessarily that compensation schemes are undesirable or that victims should be forced to pursue individual litigation. Rather, it is that the creation of a compensation mechanism should not be confused with the delivery of justice itself.

Too often, public debate treats compensation as though it were a simple administrative exercise. Once a scheme has been announced, the assumption is that the difficult work has been completed and that justice will naturally follow. In reality, the announcement of a compensation programme is often merely the beginning of a new and highly complex process involving assessments, evidential requirements, negotiations, appeals and disputes over methodology.

As these structures become larger and more sophisticated, they frequently acquire characteristics that will be familiar to anyone who has observed major litigation. Questions arise about eligibility. Arguments emerge over how losses should be calculated. Administrators develop increasingly detailed procedures in an attempt to ensure consistency and fairness. Governments and organisations responsible for funding compensation seek to control costs and manage liabilities. Legal representatives challenge decisions and push for alternative interpretations.

What begins as an effort to simplify justice can gradually evolve into something that resembles litigation in all but name.

This is one of the great paradoxes of modern compensation culture. Systems that are designed to avoid the cost, delay and complexity associated with traditional legal proceedings often end up reproducing many of those same features through administrative processes. The courtroom may disappear, but lengthy disputes remain. Formal judgments may be replaced by assessments and reviews, but disagreements continue. The language changes, yet the experience for claimants can feel remarkably similar.

Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of Bates’ criticism is that it reflects frustrations that have become increasingly common across a variety of large-scale compensation and redress schemes. Victims frequently find themselves navigating layers of procedure that were intended to help them but which instead create additional uncertainty and delay. The focus gradually shifts away from the original wrongdoing and towards the mechanics of the compensation process itself.

In such circumstances, the system can begin to serve its own administrative needs rather than those of the people it was created to assist.

This matters because Britain is entering an era in which collective claims are becoming increasingly common. Litigation funders continue to expand their presence in the market. Claimant firms are investing heavily in large-scale actions involving consumers, shareholders, data privacy and environmental issues. Campaigners routinely call for broader powers to pursue collective redress against corporations and public bodies.

Underlying much of this activity is an assumption that rarely receives serious scrutiny – namely, that more opportunities to bring claims will necessarily produce more justice.

The experience of the Horizon compensation schemes suggests that matters are considerably more complicated than that.

Justice is not measured by the number of claims submitted, the size of a compensation fund or the sophistication of the process established to administer it. It is measured by whether those who have suffered genuine harm receive fair, timely and transparent redress. If the process becomes so complex that claimants lose confidence in it, or so protracted that compensation itself becomes another source of frustration, then the existence of the scheme cannot by itself be regarded as a success.

None of this should be interpreted as diminishing the seriousness of the Post Office scandal or the entitlement of victims to full compensation. If anything, Bates’ evidence points in the opposite direction. It demonstrates the importance of designing systems that prioritise simplicity, independence and efficiency rather than assuming that ever greater layers of oversight and procedure will automatically improve outcomes.

The lesson is not that compensation is unnecessary. It is that compensation schemes should be judged by their results rather than their intentions.

For years, Sir Alan Bates exposed the institutional failures that allowed the Horizon scandal to occur. His latest intervention may ultimately prove significant for a different reason. It challenges the increasingly fashionable belief that larger compensation frameworks, more elaborate redress mechanisms and ever-expanding opportunities for collective claims are inherently signs of progress.

As policymakers continue to explore new forms of collective litigation and mass compensation, they would do well to remember the warning contained within his remarks.

Justice is not achieved when a scheme is announced.

Justice is achieved when those who have been wronged no longer have to fight for it.