Source of Funding

The request was successful.

Dear Post Office Limited,

As previously answered by yourselves you indicated that a payment of some £52.25m was paid to Freeths from your Barclays Account on the 12th December 2019.

Could you please provide me with evidence of the source of these funds. A study of your annual accounts for the past 10 years does not indicate that POL at any time has had access to such liquidity. That is confirmed by POL's negotiations with BEIS and the provision by BEIS of a new facility of £50m to cover such an eventuality of requiring £52.25m at a couple of days notice.

If the source of the funds was 'cash in the network' please provide me with evidence that the necessary 'cash in the network' was NOT replenished by accessing funds available from the Working Capital Facility provided by BEIS/UKGI

Yours faithfully,

Tim McCormack

Information Rights Team, Post Office Limited

Our ref: FOI2021/00065

Dear Mr McCormack,

Thank you for your request for information which was received on 2nd
February. Your request is being considered under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.

The Act requires that a response must be given promptly, and in any event
within 20 working days. We will therefore reply at the latest by 2nd
March.

Please note that due to members of the Information Rights team being
absent due to Covid-19, it is taking longer to process information
requests at this time and regrettably we may be unable to respond to your
request by the due date identified above. We are progressing information
requests as quickly as possible in these circumstances and apologise for
any delay.

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Yours sincerely,

Jackie Lawrence

Information Rights Team

Finsbury Dials

20 Finsbury Street

London

EC2Y 9AQ

Information Rights Team, Post Office Limited

1 Attachment

Dear Mr McCormack,

Please find the response attached to your Freedom of Information request.

Regards,

Jackie Lawrence

Information Rights Team

Ground Floor

Finsbury Dials

20 Finsbury Street

London EC2Y 9AQ