Post Office boss wanted £1m pay deal
Nick Read accused of bullying as he attempted to secure pay rise after his ‘patience expired’
THE chief executive of the Post Office demanded a salary of more than £1 million and repeatedly threatened to quit, it has been reported.
Nick Read, who was paid £573,000 last year, allegedly warned colleagues he was “prepared to make a drama” and submit a “formal grievance” after his requests for higher pay were rejected by ministers. He said his “patience has expired” and “we will end up in a real self-made mess” if his demands were not met, it is claimed.
A whistleblowing report by his HR director accused Mr Read of bullying and threatening to resign multiple times as he attempted to secure a big pay rise, The Sunday Times reported.
The claims come after Mr Read told MPS on the Commons’ business and trade select committee under oath last month that he had never threatened to resign.
Senior MPS suggested over the weekend that Mr Read would have to resign if it was found that he misled Parliament. Kevan Jones, a Labour MP who sits on the independent Horizon compensation advisory board, said: “This exposé shows what the postmasters and I have been saying for a while: that the culture at the Post Office is still rotten at the top.
“Postmasters will be rightly outraged and angry at the greed, and it begs the question of where these people’s moral compass is. Read should either resign or be sacked.” Members of the Post Office board dispute claims that Mr Read threatened to resign.
Ben Tidswell, senior independent director on the Post Office Board, said: “Like many of you, I know that Nick Read has at times felt the weight of Post Office’s awful history on his shoulders.
“It is no surprise, and is entirely appropriate, that he will have discussed this, in confidence, with the former chairman. However, to my knowledge he has never tendered his resignation and he continues to accept leadership responsibility for the challenges that we are all working on each day.”
Mr Read, a former army officer, has been chief executive of the Post Office since 2019. He was paid £816,000 in 2021-22 and £573,000 in 2022-23.
Henry Staunton, the former Post Office chairman, began lobbying to get Mr Read more money shortly before he took on the role in late 2022, according to The Sunday Times.
He suggested increasing the chief executive’s maximum pay package to more than £1.1 million, which he said would put Mr Read close to the “lower quartile” of private sector peers.
A spokesman for the Post Office said: “Nick Read was rated as exceptional by both Tim Parker and Henry Staunton. Post Office uses external consultants to advise and benchmark its pay policies, and the chief executive pay ratio is 17:1, compared to the median UK chief executive pay ratio of 40:1.”
No-win, no-fee legal deals that enabled sub-postmasters to take action against the Post Office are to be protected by a new law after the Supreme Court ruled that they were unenforceable.