back to article Post Office awards Fujitsu a £42.5m contract extension for the IT system behind wrongful subpostmaster prosecutions

The UK Post Office has awarded Fujitsu a £42.5m contract extension to run the Horizon IT system, faults in which led to dozens of subpostmasters being wrongly prosecuted. In December last year, the Court of Appeal formally cleared six subpostmasters of criminal convictions including false representation, false accounting, …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £42.5m What's that in easy to understand units?

    About 10½ Vennells?

  2. TheProf
    Unhappy

    Big 'business' contract

    'Look Sucker. You know the system is faulty, I know the system is faulty, your customers know the system is faulty. Even the Goddam government knows the system is faulty. But what's the alternative huh? You just gonna keep paper records of all those postage stamps you sell? Ha! Like that's gonna work!'

    1. HarryBl

      Re: Big 'business' contract

      I know of a postmistress in an admittedly one man band sub post office who started doing exactly that after Horizon screwed her over for several thousand pounds.

  3. Winkypop Silver badge

    £42.5m

    How much do the wrongfully accused/convicted get?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: £42.5m

      SQRT(Jack-Shit) after Therium took their cut.

      How much have PO spent on the scandal ? About £100 million last time I looked. Almost none of that getting to the wronged parties.

  4. Chris G

    Monolithic

    Probably describes the mental processes of the PO management equally as well as the system.

    When you think there has been the best part of two decades to make the system more flexible and less monolithic, one can only think the management don't give a crap.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: Monolithic

      Chris G : "When you think there has been the best part of two decades to make the system more flexible and less monolithic, one can only think the management don't give a crap."

      Well, be fair, they've doubtless been 'advised' about upgrades by Fujitsu, who probably put their 'very best people' on the job*.

      *The job being to retain the business despite their obvious failings.

  5. Gordon 10
    FAIL

    Hmmm

    Whats the betting the planning to get off of Horizon in the next 2 (now 3 years) hasn't even started yet?

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    So, let me summarize

    For "economic and technical reasons," the service could not be provided by any organisation other than the original contractor before the expiry of the Horizon Agreement

    Okay, sure, that part I can accept. It would be highly unreasonable to throw everything away and have operation grind to a halt while you commission Crapita (because who else ?) to develop an entirely new set of bugs.

    So fine, ensure the maintenance of your buggy, mololithic, outdated system. Got it.

    Meanwhile, now that you have ensured its continuance, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO REPLACE IT ? Now's the time. Throw another £100 million to somebody and get your non-monolithic, up-to-date, designed for multi-channel digital operations (do you really even know what that means ?), highly Agile system on its feet so that you can replace the dinosaur when the next end date expires.

    Because 2024 is going to be here before you finish drawing up your next set of outdated specifications, I'll wager.

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: So, let me summarize

      Multi-channel:

      They have a retail channel, their post offices

      They have account customers where they visit every day and collect a vanload of stuff

      They also sell stamps to supermarkets etc who then resell them to their own customers

      They have online customers who pay for barcodes to print on their envelopes / packages, or pay for stamps and have them delivered

      That's four or five different channels.

      1. General Purpose

        Re: So, let me summarize

        It's Royal Mail Group that collects mail, sells stamps to supermarkets, and sells postage online. Post Office Ltd has been independent of Royal Mail for nearly 10 years.

      2. MrReynolds2U

        Re: So, let me summarize

        I don't know whether they are included in the system but you also have the banking, insurance and other utility side businesses. I presume they add to the number of channels they are referring to.

        I wouldn't want to touch it with a bargepole.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Schadenfreude fans can rejoice

    Former Post Office director Angela van den Bogerd (the one who "misled" the court) was appointed as "Head of People " by the Football Association of Wales(FAW) last year. Since then the Chief Executive, Jonathan Ford, who appointed her has lost a no-confidence motion, been placed on gardening leave, and left the organisation. Van den Bogerd has not had her probationary period extended. See:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56444886

    Ford had been in-post for 11 years.

  8. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    Theres a good few high ups and previous high ups in the PO who really, really deserve jail time.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Joke

      The Beast of Bolsover

      Your comment reminds me of an exchange in the House of commons between Dennis Skinner (aka the Beast of Bolsover) and the Speaker.

      DS: Half the Tory members opposite are crooks.

      Speaker: The hon Member will retract that comment.

      DS: OK, half the Tory members aren't crooks.

      1. John Doe 12

        Re: The Beast of Bolsover

        Sadly this seems to be #fakenews - would have loved it to be true!!

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Re: The Beast of Bolsover

          Gosh, you seem to be correct. Hansard does not record Mr Skinner using the work "crooks" at all, and he only uses the word "half" on a few occasions.

          https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/MemberContributions?memberId=325&startDate=2016-04-07&endDate=2021-04-07&type=Spoken&searchTerm=half&outputType=List&partial=False

          However, it is attributed to him in several other places:

          https://www.theweek.co.uk/62692/dennis-skinner-quotes-the-beast-of-bolsover-in-full-flow

          https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/dodgy-dave-dennis-skinner-kicked-house-commons-pm-jibe-976

          https://www.chad.co.uk/news/dennis-skinner-beast-bolsover-five-his-best-quotes-2256248

          I am saddened by this scourge of misinformation.

          1. david 12 Silver badge

            Re: The Beast of Bolsover

            >Hansard does not record Mr Skinner using the work "crooks" at all,

            At the option of the house, Hansard does not record things that 'never happened' (were withdrawn with exceptional circumstances). So there is a small open possibility.

            More commonly, heckling is not reported unless the the member with the floor responds. So Mr Skinner may have used the word 'crooks' many times, and simply not been reported.

  9. a pressbutton

    According to the Private Eye,

    POST WASTE

    Trashing its own reputation and mistreating sub-postmasters in the long running Horizon IT scandal has so far cost the Post Office a quarter of a billion pounds.

    ... it looks like it will cost more to cover up and then pay the lawyers (oh, and a small amount to the many victims whose lives have been ruined) than it would have cost to write a new system.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      ...and at a time when more and more sub-post offices are closing, who in their right mind would step forward to be responsible for a small business subject to the worst aspects of large organisation private and public ownership. What a clusterf@#~

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Isn't that the point?

        The Post Office wants to shut down all the actual post offices, and become an online block-chain driven hyper-fintech imagineerigg thought leader, and this is a cheap way of doing it

        1. Winkypop Silver badge

          RE: Isn't that the point?

          Yes indeed.

          Just think of the massive Exec bonuses and the strategic think-tank meetings in the Bahamas!

      2. Muscleguy

        Our local sub post office was involved in a fire. The newsagent is back up and running sans the PO business.

        Meanwhile a newsagent approx 400m East is now a sub post office as is the one 800m (by road) away to the NW.

        So two established local newsagents have apparently jumped at the chance. The guy in the Eastern one is great. Very friendly and efficient. I seriously hope that Horizon doesn’t get him.

        I do science tutoring for an online co. They were in dispute with my client over what tutorials I did or did not do in December (when I probably wasn’t tutoring since I had viral meningitis). The co contacted me to resolve the issue. I relied on their systems to keep track . . . Meanwhile the meningitis screws with your memory . . .

        There’s a lesson there, keep your own records. I shall be doing that in the future.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As a lawyer who negotiates these types of contracts, the question is whether this £42m one year extension was planned and priced at the outset or not.

    Everyone can anticipate that making major infrastructure change rarely runs to schedule, and ability to seek short term extensions to long running contracts will probably be useful. Ideally they will be priced fairly, based on existing rate cards / contractual spend. Suppliers who know they are losing the contract are rarely keen to keep supporting that contract for short extensions and so will price it prohibitively, or even refuse outright, unless it is part of their agreement at the outset.

    Nevertheless, so many of my clients are drinking the Kool Aid, and really only care about getting the contract signed as quickly as possible. They prefer to avoid long negotiations on what they see as remote risks. We always warn them but query whether these warnings get passed onto their boards.

    Caveat emptor.

    It's our industry's equivalent of technical debt.

    1. RegGuy1 Silver badge

      We always warn them but query whether these warnings get passed onto their boards.

      And then when they do (HPE) they fire those who warn not to proceed.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

        Re: We always warn them but query whether these warnings get passed onto their boards.

        When BT lost the CHIEF* contract renewal to CapGemini, HMRC was 'disappointed' that we did not bid for the much smaller contract of supporting an associated system. The BT managers having decided that it was not worth the contract value to keep the staff necessary engaged in the work.

        *Cargo Handling Import Export Freight

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That was then..............

    Once upon a time there was a software design principle: Do one thing and do it well.

    *

    Twice upon a time there was a software architecture principle: Modularity

    *

    Then people (like SAP) came along and provided EVERYTHING (....well....most of everything) in one huge shiny box. This new approach had the fantastic benefit (for SAP and others) that it meant lots of extra business for consultants and programmers to "configure" the huge shiny box.

    *

    And here we are today.....another huge shiny box.......more consultants.......more "configure" possibilities........no end in sight.......

    *

    Did I mention design or modularity? Sorry....just so early twentieth century!

    *

    Perhaps we can start on the next disaster.....the one that involves "agile", "devops" and "cloud"?......the one that will see an action replay in ANOTHER twenty years!!!!

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Re: That was then..............

      "And here we are today............more "configure" possibilities........no end in sight"

      Absolutely, and it reminds me of something else that appears to be a trainwreck of piled together crap looking for a place to happen (i.e. crash)....

      systemd

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Relevant?

    Probably not relevant if the goal is to provide postal services but I’ll leave this here anyway

    https://marcus-baw.medium.com/the-nhs-as-an-unassailable-public-private-wealth-transfer-mechanism-a1eef002bcc0

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