10:48
Tieng Anh Vui
The Post Office has admitted that software defects have occurred with a computer system at the centre of a bitter dispute with some of its 11,500 sub-postmasters across the UK.
More than 100 say they were wrongly prosecuted or made to repay money after computers made non-existent shortfalls.
Some of them lost their homes as a result and a few went to prison.
The Post Office said the report made clear that its computer system functioned "effectively".
Sub-postmasters, who run the smaller post offices in the UK, are not directly employed by the Post Office but are contracted to run their branches as businesses.
They are responsible for balancing the books themselves, using the Post Office's Horizon computer system which processes all transactions.
'Further improvement'
A vocal minority of sub-postmasters have claimed for years that they were wrongly accused of theft after their Post Office computers apparently notified them of shortages that sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of pounds.
They were forced to pay in the missing amounts themselves, lost their contracts and in some cases went to jail.
Over the past year, independent investigators Second Sight, who were employed by the Post Office, have been examining a handful of the claims.
Although they found no evidence of systemic problems with the core software, they have found bugs in it which, in one case, created a temporary shortfall of £9,000.
They say the Post Office's initial investigation failed at first to identify the root cause of the problems.
The report says more help should have been given to sub-postmasters, who had no way of defending themselves.
And it concludes that further investigation is required.
More than 100 sub-postmasters have registered an interest in suing the Post Office over the prosecutions.
Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells said: "We commissioned this independent review to address concerns that have been raised about the Horizon system and we welcome the broad thrust of the interim findings."
She added: "The interim review makes clear that the Horizon computer system and its supporting processes function effectively across our network.
"As the review notes, it is used by around 68,000 people in more than 11,500 branches, successfully processing more than six million transactions every day.
"The review underlines our cause for confidence in the overall system."
She said the review raised questions about the training and support "offered to some sub-postmasters and we are determined to address these issues", adding that, "in many of these cases", improvements had already been made,
And she pledged to make "further improvements in this area and take better account of individual requirements and circumstances going forward".
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