The former HR director of the Post Office has accused the chief executive, Nick Read, of being ‘obsessed with his pay’ and launching a ‘deliberate campaign to defame and ostracize’ her.
Jane Davies made the allegations in a letter to the Government’s Business and Trade Committee. She claims that Read made repeated threats to resign over his salary, despite being offered a 5% pay rise.
Davies also alleges that Read regarded her as a failure for not securing a higher pay increase and that he subsequently ostracized her. The Post Office’s latest accounts reveal that Read’s salary for the 2022 to 2023 financial year totaled £570,000, down from £816,000 in the previous year.
Davies’ letter comes a week after the Post Office confirmed that Read had been cleared of all misconduct allegations following a report into his behavior.
Davies joined the Post Office with a mandate to tackle deep-seated cultural problems within the organization and prioritize redress for the victims of the Horizon scandal. However, she says she found a chief executive who was obsessed with his pay, to such an extent that it was a huge distraction from her establishing herself in her new position and performing the duties that were set out in her job description.
The Post Office has declined to comment on Davies’ allegations. However, a government Bill has been introduced to quash the convictions of subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted on the basis of faulty accounting software named Horizon.
