The Post Office Scandal: A masterclass in strategic communications failure

12 Jul

The Horizon IT scandal exposed a catastrophic failure of corporate communication, where denial and spin were prioritised over truth and accountability.

Public relations operates along an ethical spectrum, from serving as the eyes and ears of an organisation, holding a mirror up to management, to acting as a mouthpiece that wilfully manipulates public perception. The Post Office operated at the far end of that spectrum.

Sir Wyn Williams’ Final Report: Volume 1 of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is one of the most damning public documents ever written about a British institution. Clear, plain and judicially grounded, it leaves no room for interpretation: the Post Office’s conduct was “wholly unacceptable.”

But for communications leaders, it’s also a forensic dissection of strategic communication gone fatally wrong. It’s required reading for anyone in management, public relations or corporate affairs. It shows how institutional communication created a culture that was weaponised by legal strategy and driven by blind loyalty to an IT system. The result was the destruction of personal reputations, livelihoods and lives.

The fiction of infallibility

From the earliest days of the Horizon system in 1999, sub-postmasters reported discrepancies. Instead of engaging, the Post Office responded with a consistent (and false) line: Horizon was “robust and reliable.” Despite internal knowledge of bugs, errors and false shortfalls, the organisation upheld this narrative for more than a decade.

This was not just miscommunication. It was wilful blindness, cloaked in communication strategy. The communications team became guardians of the myth rather than interrogators of the truth.

Silencing the victims, spinning the press

When stakeholders, including postmasters, MPs and the media, raised the alarm, the Post Office’s response was to double down. Its public messaging was rooted in denial, its posture aggressive and defensive. It reassured Parliament, reassured ministers and reassured the media.

This is strategic communications at its worst: not a tool for transparency, but a strategy for survival. The institution didn’t just fail to communicate truthfully. It used its communications muscle to obstruct justice.

Legal threats instead of ethical listening

Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the report is how the Post Office used its power not just to deny, but to punish. Sub-postmasters were prosecuted on the basis of faulty Horizon data. Legal action was pursued even when doubts about the system were known internally.

This is where communications ceased to be about managing reputation and became about enforcing silence. Communications become complicit when brand protection trumps truth-telling and when internal critics are treated as adversaries.

Broken communication flows, broken governance

The inquiry also points to catastrophic governance breakdowns. Key information was either not passed upwards, filtered out or ignored. The board was fed a version of reality shaped by those unwilling to challenge the system.

This reflects a failure not just of leadership, but of communication structures. Without an environment that supports truth-telling, no crisis plan will survive contact with reality.

Lessons for communicators

There is no soft landing here. The Post Office scandal must be studied in every corporate affairs team, communications training programme and management course. It is not just a failure of IT or legal process. It is a strategic communications failure at scale.

Here’s what we must learn:

Assume nothing is infallible
Technology, data and legal advice should not be beyond challenge. If you’re not asking questions, you’re not doing your job.