Fujitsu bags £3bn in public sector contracts while gadget errors damage the lives of subpostmasters

Fujitsu kept aloof about Horizon flaws

Many subpostmaster victims of the scandal had been bankrupted by having to make exhaust of their lifestyles savings and promote assets to proceed shortfalls in their accounts which finest existed on Horizon and had been triggered by gadget errors.

A total of 736 subpostmasters had been prosecuted for financial crimes with some sent to detention heart. Many suffered ill health triggered by stress and there is at the least one suicide linked to the scandal. It is described as the excellent miscarriage of justice in UK history and 45 subpostmasters have already had criminal convictions quashed with many time extra expected to note.

All alongside, the Post Web site of enterprise denied that the Fujitsu Horizon gadget may per chance perhaps cause unexplained shortfalls, and Fujitsu, which knew this was once no longer the case, remained soundless

All alongside, the Post Web site of enterprise denied that the Fujitsu Horizon gadget may per chance perhaps cause unexplained shortfalls, and Fujitsu, which knew this was once no longer the case, remained soundless.

Between 2000 and 2015, Fujitsu stood by while the Post Web site of enterprise prosecuted subpostmasters in step with proof from the Horizon gadget, which Fujitsu personnel knew was once flawed.

Campaigners for justice inquire of a paunchy statutory public inquiry into the Horizon scandal, with the energy to name witnesses, alongside with previous and show Fujitsu personnel. The authorities’s recent inquiry, led by feeble prefer Wyn Williams, does no longer have the energy to compel folks to present proof below oath or inquire of the documentation it needs. Fujitsu is taking segment on this inquiry, nonetheless it undoubtedly is being described as a “whitewash” by campaigners.

For two a long time, subpostmasters suspected that the unexplained losses had been triggered by the Horizon gadget. In 2009, Computer Weekly urged the experiences of seven subpostmasters plagued by the losses (leer timeline below for Computer Weekly coverage of the scandal).

The Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) was once fashioned soon after and began its marketing campaign for justice. This culminated in a High Court docket community litigation, which resulted in December 2019.

After years of Post Web site of enterprise denials over errors within the Horizon gadget, supported by silence from Fujitsu, the prefer within the High Court docket came all around the Horizon gadget was once no longer remotely sturdy and contained many errors that may per chance perhaps cause unexplained shortfalls.

All around the community litigation, where 555 subpostmasters had been suing the Post Web site of enterprise, the prefer, Peter Fraser, described the Post Web site of enterprise’s denials of computer errors as the “21st century a connected of affirming the earth is flat”.

Fujitsu’s reliability was once additionally identified as into quiz after the court case. It emerged that expert IT witnesses from Fujitsu, former by the Post Web site of enterprise in court trials of subpostmasters charged with financial crimes alongside with theft and unfounded accounting, didn’t repeat the total truth.

The Metropolitan Police is at the present investigating Fujitsu personnel for doubtlessly committing perjury all over court trials of subpostmasters.

One senior corporate lawyer, specialising in IT outsourcing, wondered why Fujitsu personnel may per chance perhaps provide misleading proof, asserting: “For a personnel member at an IT seller to lie to a court is vulnerable to be that it was once keeping the customer, nonetheless extra likely itself.”

Computer Weekly has been anxious answers from Fujitsu, nonetheless the company has so a ways failed to respond.

Astronomical inner most and financial damage

Arbuthnot said it was once no longer accurate enough for Fujitsu to plead secrecy when the Horizon gadget has had massive consequences for the country. “[Fujitsu] has performed a prime segment in destroying the recognition of the Post Web site of enterprise, which was once once a grand-cherished organisation, central to the village and city communities right by the land,” he said.

“[Fujitsu] has performed a prime segment in destroying the recognition of the Post Web site of enterprise, which was once once a grand-cherished organisation, central to the village and city communities right by the land”

“However grand extra importantly, Horizon has additionally triggered hundreds of revered folks to be humiliated inner these communities, many going bankrupt or losing their lifestyles savings, some seeing their households destroyed, some going to detention heart and even some suicides.”

Now not finest have the IT screw ups of the Horizon gadget triggered subpostmasters immeasurable damage, nonetheless public funds had been, and proceed to be, thrown at the difficulty.

The taxpayer-funded Post Web site of enterprise has already wasted an estimated £100m in apt prices combating subpostmasters in court and paid a £57.75m settlement with them after it admitted defeat, all nonetheless £11m of which went on subpostmaster apt prices.

Following the court judgment, the Post Web site of enterprise was once forced to blueprint up a compensation plan, which 2,400 feeble subpostmasters have joined. Because of the the massive quantity of damages expected, the authorities has had to agree to foot the bill.

However the massive prices and struggling will had been shunned had Fujitsu been birth about the issues.

Instrument testers identified hundreds of bugs

In 2015, Computer Weekly reported an anonymous source who came forward after following coverage of Horizon issues.

He said when Horizon was once being received within the slow 1990s, experts identified the “cash writing program” as a that you just may be ready to express cause of significant issues. He said groups identified a effort of files corruption on the bespoke asynchronous dialog gadget which sent messages between branches and the central Horizon setup.

Talking to Computer Weekly in 2015, the source said: “The asynchronous gadget does no longer talk in precise time, nonetheless does so utilizing a series of messages which would perhaps be saved, and forwarded when the community connection is quick within the market. This procedure that messages to and from the centre also can just breeze over each and every assorted. It is perfectly that you just may be ready to express that, if no longer handled neatly, messages from the centre also can just overwrite records held locally.”

Earlier this twelve months, a feeble Fujitsu developer urged Computer Weekly that he made his superiors at Fujitsu attentive to the extent of issues with Horizon, telling them explicitly that the cash sage major to be scrapped.

“All people within the building by the time I got there knew it was once a get of st”, he said. “It had long previous by the test labs God is aware of what number of cases, and the testers had been raising bugs by the thousand.”

Computer Weekly requested Fujitsu why it didn’t repeat the truth about errors within the gadget when subpostmasters had been being prosecuted, even being sent to detention heart? Fujitsu was once additionally requested if it accepts it was once at fault allowing the Post Web site of enterprise to teach that Horizon errors may per chance perhaps no longer cause unexplained losses when, in actuality, both organisations knew this to be the case?

Fujitsu said it may per chance perhaps in point of fact well no longer respond these questions, nonetheless sent an announcement: “As a lengthy-time-frame companion to UK public and inner most sector organisations, we are dedicated to supporting our possibilities, our workers and the folks they encourage within the UK. We equipped detailed responses to all questions raised by the Dwelling of Commons Industry, Energy and Industrial Technique (BEIS) Take Committee, which is ready to be be taught here, and are persevering with to cooperate with the continuing Post Web site of enterprise Horizon IT Inquiry.” 

Passing the buck

BEIS glean committee chair Darren Jones MP said answers obtained from the Post Web site of enterprise, Fujitsu and feeble Post Web site of enterprise CEO Paula Vennells would likely be viewed by many as makes an attempt to shift the blame.

In her answers to the MP’s questions, Vennells blamed Fujitsu for no longer giving her and the Post Web site of enterprise administration a correct image of the issues with Horizon.

“The message that the board and I had been consistently given by Fujitsu, from the best likely ranges of the company, was once that while, like any IT gadget, Horizon was once no longer excellent and had a shrimp lifespan, it was once essentially sound,” she wrote.

“I believed that it was once realistic for the board to count on these assurances: Fujitsu was once a revered worldwide IT company, it had many assorted governmental and high-profile possibilities, and from my trip of working with Fujitsu, it perceived to be effectively-led and professional.”

Vennells said the board requested Fujitsu inquiries to aid it realize the failings with Horizon, nonetheless “it now looks to be that the answers that came aid to these questions had been finest partly real”.

Resolve Putland, senior vice-president at Fujitsu, was once requested for a response to the prefer’s blueprint that the court case equipped “a in actuality one-sided image” of Horizon, which uncared for any reference to documents that criticised or demonstrated deficiencies with the gadget. 

Putland blamed the Post Web site of enterprise. “Fujitsu was once no longer a celebration to the litigation. All decisions concerning the prosecution of subpostmasters and the behavior of the [High Court group litigation] had been made by the Post Web site of enterprise,” he said.

“While Fujitsu workers gave proof, it was once the Post Web site of enterprise which certain all facets of its case, alongside with the choice of witnesses, the personality of their proof and the connected documents.”