Guidance

Expert report guidance: Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme and Horizon Shortfall Scheme Appeals

Published 15 September 2025

Requirements

1. From 28 August 2025, all reports should be prepared in accordance with the requirements set out in this guidance and the accompanying checklists.

2. Applicants’ legal representatives in Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS) and Horizon Shortfall Scheme Appeals (HSSA) should ensure they:

• provide this guidance, and the relevant checklist (contained in Annex A and Annex B), in their instructions to experts
  
• review the report against the checklist before submitting it to the Department for Business and Trade (DBT)
  

3.‎ Experts are encouraged to include a statement within the body of their report confirming that they have considered this guidance and the accompanying checklist and that the relevant matters contained therein have been addressed.

Purpose

4.‎ This guidance outlines the general approach that the experts should take when providing evidence as part of a claim for financial redress in the HCRS and HSSA. It addresses certain recurring issues that have arisen with some reports provided in support of applications.

5.‎ The aim is to ensure that expert evidence is independent and objective, facilitating applicants obtaining fair and prompt offers. High-quality expert reports are crucial to achieving this objective.

6.‎ With the applicants’ legal representatives and experts, we have developed a standardised approach both to the decision as to whether expert evidence should be sought and a checklist (for both forensic accountant reports and medical reports), consistent with the individual issues that may affect an applicant. This is to ensure that the reports are focused on the issues that need to be addressed to enable DBT to make fair and prompt offers and, if required, to ensure that evidence is also sufficient for every stage of the dispute process, to the extent that agreement cannot be reached.

7.‎ DBT will continue to assess cases in accordance with the published HCRS assessment framework or HSSA guidance and principles. Nothing in this guidance is intended to dilute or amend those principles.

8.‎ This guidance and the accompanying checklists may be updated when needed and changes will be logged. View the ‘See all updates’ link at the top of the main page for an overview of update. Quarterly roundtables will also be held between DBT, legal representatives and experts to evaluate progress, resolve any issues and amend the guidance and checklists where appropriate.

Context

9.‎ The primary areas requiring expert evidence are:

• accountancy – where we foresee the primary need being for matters that require specialised knowledge and/or complex calculations requiring real expertise or opinion beyond that which a layperson could reasonably be expected to possess (for example, complex valuations of businesses, property assets and/or financial transactions) rather than pure number crunching.
• retail and/or property valuation (as standalone or where supporting retail or property expertise is required to support the valuation of a claim for loss of profit, sale at undervalue or another ‘but for’ counterfactual).
• medical – amounts will be awarded in line with the Judicial College Guidelines for personal injury.

We therefore require medical evidence primarily in relation to:

a.‎ causation – where that cannot be readily inferred from medical records which evidence a temporal connection or be accepted based on the applicant’s own account (or that of their family), including any other factors which may have caused or contributed to the condition

b.‎ the nature and extent of the condition – the expert evidence should cover, the diagnosis and evidence as to (i) the applicant’s ability to cope with life, education, and work (ii) the effect on the applicant’s relationships with family, friends, and those with whom they come into contact, (iii) the extent to which treatment would be successful, (iv) future vulnerability. The expert evidence should only consider the impact of the personal injury on these factors, not the impact of the Horizon shortfalls and any other resulting consequences generally

c. prognosis – including in relation to the impact of the condition on future loss of earnings and/or future needs (with diagnosis evidence only going to conditions that may not be evidenced in medical records or implied from the nature of medicines prescribed or care given), including any treatment which the applicant would benefit from and the likely impact on their prognosis

Overall expectations

10.‎ DBT agrees to provide funding for independent expert reports to support the assessment of claims (subject to existing costs frameworks). It is for the applicant’s legal representative to obtain and instruct the relevant experts. DBT does not procure additional experts to scrutinise these reports, as this would render the process more adversarial and increase costs for taxpayers. Therefore, unlike in court cases, where both sides typically instruct their own experts, in these redress schemes, both the applicant and DBT are relying on the report.

11.‎ Therefore, to support this process, DBT requires experts to prepare reports that are transparent, objective and consistent. When reports follow these expectations, this allows DBT to follow how the expert has arrived at their conclusion, to place appropriate weight on the report and supports the overall fairness and efficiency of the process by reducing the need for requests for additional information.

12.‎ Expert reports must therefore meet the following requirements, which reflect the requirements set out in paragraph 2 of Practice Direction 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules:

• expert evidence should be the independent product of the expert uninfluenced by the pressures of the scheme

• the experts should provide objective, unbiased opinions on matters within their expertise, and should not assume the role of an advocate

• the experts should consider all material facts, including those which might detract from their opinions

• the experts should make it clear:
  (a) when a question or issue falls outside their expertise; and 
  (b) when they are not able to reach a definite opinion, for example because they have insufficient information

• if, after producing a report, the experts’ view changes on any material matter, such change of view should be communicated to the applicant and DBT without delay

Recurring issues

13.‎ We have observed that a number of reports in other redress schemes are not meeting the necessary standards, which can affect the efficiency of claim assessments and lead to unrealistic expectations among applicants. There appear to be 2 primary issues:

• experts are not producing comprehensive reports that adequately cover the framework or principles
• some experts adopting a partisan approach in their reports

Forensic accountant reports

14.‎ For forensic accountant reports, recurring issues with the contents of the report include, but are not limited to:

• reports that do not adhere to the published scheme principles (for example, not adopting the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure or using Zoopla as the basis to value property rather than the Nationwide house price index as per the guidance)
• reports include assumptions without clearly explaining the reasoning behind them
• reports that fail to provide an analysis of documents or an explanation as to why evidence hasn’t been considered/or has been discounted
• capital valuations by reference to inappropriate (non-comparable) comparators

Medical reports

15.‎ For medical reports, recurring issues with the contents of the report include, but are not limited to, the failure of experts to opine on the:

• severity of the applicant’s symptoms
• applicant’s prognosis
• treatment required by the applicant