£136M government grant saves troubled Post Office from suboptimal IT
- Reference: 1745577374
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/04/25/136_million_government_grant_saves/
- Source link:
A hit to day-to-day operations and a negative impact on back-office functionality would also await the beleaguered state-owned service if it were refused the taxpayers' money, a [1]report from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found.
But the country's market regulator wants more evidence to understand why the vital spending cannot come from Post Office coffers, rather than from a one-off grant from the Department for Business and Trade. The figure is set to be rolled into a £277 million ($368 million) package intended to make sure the Post Office can pay those subpostmasters affected by the Horizon scandal as part of the redress settlement.
[2]
First introduced to the Post Office in 1999, the Horizon accounting system made mistakes in calculating the finances of retail branches run by subpostmasters, who were initially blamed for the errors, with hundreds facing prosecution. The consequences were devastating for many involved, leaving some bankrupt and others feeling suicidal, with several ending their own lives. Sixty people died before seeing any form of justice served. It is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in recent British history.
[3]
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The government commissioned the Subsidy Advice Unit, part of the CMA, to look into the compliance of the proposed £136 million ($180 million) grant to get its tech house in order.
[5]Fujitsu promised to sit out UK deals ... then Northern Ireland called with £125M
[6]In wake of Horizon scandal, forensics prof says digital evidence is a minefield
[7]UK biz dept overspent by £208M prepping to pay workers hurt in Post Office IT scandal
[8]We told Post Office about system problems at the highest level, Fujitsu tells Horizon Inquiry
"[The Post Office's] ability to replace the core IT system beyond a minimum level replacement/upgrade would be reduced. Even the minimum viable 'do nothing' option (maintaining the existing system) would require significant investment without meeting needs, and so would eventually require further subsidies," the report states.
However, the regulator said the Post Office could have provided better evidence of the need for public sector funds to subsisdize its technology transformation plan, Future Technology Portfolio (FTP).
"Further evidencing of the financial constraints detailed in the assessment would particularly help to explain why budgets cannot be reallocated to fund the FTP while cutting back on other areas. For example, this evidence could be provided through detailed financial statements (e.g. balance sheet, profit and loss accounts and cash flow statements), budgets, and/or profitability calculations with risk assessments, accompanied by a clear articulation of the types of business-as-usual costs ordinarily self-funded by POL and why the FTP falls outside these," the report said.
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The Post Office plans to replace Horizon with New Branch IT, or NBIT, and [10]kicked off the competition to find a supplier with a £75 million ($99 million) tender in April last year. In March 2025, [11]it extended Fujitsu's contract to run Horizon until March next year , at a cost of £63 million ($84 million), bringing the total contract value to £2.44 billion ($3.2 billion). ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-on-the-post-office-future-technology-portfolio-2025-to-2026-subsidy
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aAuxsAsD13qlhmT_Qvn5-QAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aAuxsAsD13qlhmT_Qvn5-QAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aAuxsAsD13qlhmT_Qvn5-QAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/23/fujitsu_northern_reland/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/16/uk_digital_evidence_inquiry/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/uk_government_department_exceeds_spending/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/18/we_told_post_office_about/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aAuxsAsD13qlhmT_Qvn5-QAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/uk_post_office_epos_procurement/
[11] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/009521-2025
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: The utter shittiness of English law
Judges and juries make decisions based on the evidence presented to them. In this case the evidence presented was flawed.
Re: The utter shittiness of English law
It's like the whole system is not fit for purpose.
No one can be held accountable.
It's just a dream landscape for unscrupulous big corporations.
It's a shame politicians more respect them than the voters who put them in the office.
Re: The utter shittiness of English law
And 4 psychopaths downvoted you.
What a world.
Re: The utter shittiness of English law
It could be worse. We could be talking about American Law where corporations literally kill people and evade justice for decades by which time most of the people are dead and whatever compensation is left goes to the lawyers.
Why would a prosecutor or judge apologise? That would imply they knew the information given to them at the time was incorrect. They did not. They did the job they were supposed to. In English law you cannot appeal the judges decision. You can only appeal if there was evidence or information that would have altered the judges or in fact the juries decisions. In this case it was not until the relevant information came to light that the people could appeal the decisions made against them. The only criticism of English law in this regard is the amount of time that took however, appealing a conviction is a lengthy process for good reason.
Re: The utter shittiness of English law
They did the job they were supposed to
Indeed, British judges job is supposed to be farting in the seat and issue decisions that will get them on the front page of Daily Mail for laughs.
Another idea
Give each Branch Post Office a computer and a standard (off the shelf) accounting package. Let them do their own accounts and pay whatever amount required to the head office from their own account.
Sack most of the central PO managerial staff - they won't need them any more - save money in the long run.
Re: Another idea
Post Office aren't pure businesses: They have social benefits too. It's a means for people to collect their benefits, so it has to link back to central government systems to confirm what should be paid out. It also acts a basic bank for people who can't get a normal high street bank account. You can also process some government paperwork through the Post Office (Car tax, identity/passport)
You either have a whole load of different apps for each use case or a bespoke one size fits all front end.
Re: Another idea
<....."It's a means for people to collect their benefits".....>
That hasn't been the case for a few years now - benefits now have to be paid direct into a personal bank account, so the money is directly accessible from that aacount, and no longer involves the old system of the Post Office cashing in the benefit Giro cheques.
Re: Another idea
Oh - I agree that's the case now. But back when Horizon was first conceived...?
Re: Another idea
<......."Give each Branch Post Office a computer and a standard (off the shelf) accounting package. Let them do their own accounts and pay whatever amount required to the head office from their own account."......>
That won't work - Horizon isn't simply an accounting system, it covers all the aspects of the services that POL offer, all integrated into one system - eg. Royal Mail and ParcelForce postal services (and in many branches EVRI parcel services offered alongside those from RM and ParcelForce), a fairly diverse range of banking services, car licencing (which needs integration with both the DVSA MOT Test database and the askMID car insurance database), as well as simply tracking the money.
The sheer complexity of the way the Post Offices function is one of the reasons why it was so difficult to devise a reliable universal solution, and partly why it still continues to be beyond the capabilities of Fujitsu to fix the system that they put in place over two decades ago (it is reported that around 70% of the Post Office counters have reported anomalies/issues with the current version of Horizon in the last four or five years).
What happened next
Post Office spoke to Birmingham City Council and will be using Oracle
Re: What happened next
We could all bet good money on that.
Re: What happened next
The jokes write themselves. However...
The known, big-budget catastrophies with Oracle NetSuite come from installations that demand huge changes so that it runs kinda like a similar SAP system.
As much as I might personally despise NetSuite (it is a horrible UI, a pain to navigate, and data imports don't follow any semblance of what the official CSV spec looks like - I know this personally), an OOB NetSuite installation actually works pretty well (I'm a Dynamics 365 consultant, it pains me to write this).
If the PO were to adopt NetSuite with minimal changes, they would solve basically all their problems.
I think the author of the article perhaps needs to do a little more research as the article itself is very shallow on detail.
The reality is that ICL/Fujitsu have tied the PO into the Horizon system until at least 2026 because poor management at the top of the PO and poor control by Government ministers at the time allowed ICL/Fujitsu to retain ownership of the core IP and code for the Horizon system, thereby making it massively more expensive to engage another company to redesign, replace or improve Horizon. Ministers were given warnings at the time, but chose to ignore them.
Today, from the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm8lmz1xk1o
Well no doubt the ministers had a million valid reasons to ignore those warnings.
Preferably in sterling?
I was going to point this out as well. Who pays someone to build something only for themselves then lets them retain ownership? Pretty silly really.
But, but, but...
Didn't we sell the Post Office? This sort of risk is what the owners are supposed to be taking.
I'm reminded of an old Spitting Image sketch:
Formally Rich Person to bookie: "I bet my shirt on a horse which came in last. I'd like my stake back please."
(Paraphrased from memory, can't find it on line.)
Re: But, but, but...
No, we sold Royal Mail..
Or rather "they" (Blair government IIRC?) did.
Re: But, but, but...
It was Cameron's coalition government that sold the RM.
Re: But, but, but...
The Post Office is owned by the UK Government, it was never sold.
You might be getting confused with the Royal Mail which was privatised and is about to be bought by a foreign investor.
The utter shittiness of English law
"Sixty people died before seeing any form of justice served. It is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in recent British history."
Not one prosecutor, not one judge has come forward and said "I am sorry".