The Post Office will decide whether to continue using internally built software to replace the controversial Horizon system, or buy an off-the-shelf platform before April, the company’s transformation chief said.
He added that a proposed four-year extension to the Post Office’s Horizon contract is currently with Fujitsu’s board awaiting approval, with an extension necessary “in any scenario”.
Speaking to Computer Weekly, Andy Nice, the Post Office’s chief transformation officer, agreed that the decisions could not “stand”.
Ness, who joined the Post Office in late August, and his team paused work on the troubled New Branch Information Technology (NBIT) project at the beginning of October following approval by the company’s board and the Department of Business and Trade.
“We’ve been looking at [in-house versus off-the-shelf] …for about six weeks, and we want to start the new fiscal year [April 2025] “The direction of technology transition in the Post Office as a whole is very clear,” he said. “I imagine there will be a decision before April – we are certainly pushing for that and I think the government expects that.”
He said the Post Office now works collaboratively with the government, which he added “has not always been the way and has not helped the Post Office as an organisation”.
Another major decision that has been closely scrutinized is the ongoing relationship with Fujitsu, the supplier providing the software at the heart of the Post Office scandal, which is contractually set to end in March.
Earlier this week, Fujitsu chief Paul Patterson revealed during a public hearing into the Post Office Horizon scandal that the Post Office had requested a four-year contract extension on the day it presented evidence.
Ness confirmed that this was the case. “We have been in conversation with Fujitsu about the details of the extension for some time,” he told Computer Weekly. “In an NBIT world, or any other world, we wouldn’t be ready to retire and walk away from Fujitsu just yet. That’s the reality of our situation, and Paul Patterson knows it – we all know it. There has to be an extension in any scenario.”
“The reason we mentioned different time frames is because that conversation has bounced around over the last six months, with different options requiring different extensions,” Ness added.
He said he believed the Post Office had agreement and alignment on the appropriate timing needed to deliver its plans: “At the moment, we are down to the finer details, and that is the four years that Paul Patterson mentioned at the public inquiry. [That’s] For everything, Fujitsu has to hand over Horizon and all the services it currently provides, and we either bring them in-house or find another suitable partner to deliver them. This has not been agreed upon [or] It’s been approved by Fujitsu’s board of directors, but that’s the conversation we’re in.
Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven sub-managers and the problems they suffered because of accounting software Horizon, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles on the scandal since then 2009).
