The Post Office systems scandal demands a critical response
- Reference: 1705915814
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/01/22/opinion_column/
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The Fujitsu Post Office Horizon affair is the biggest, ugliest scandal in public sector IT this century, at least among democracies. Although it has been [1]covered in the tech press for [2]nearly 15 years , with the mainstream press and the politicians catching up over time, and despite an independent public inquiry [3]at last kicking off in [4]September 2020, it took a [5]TV drama at the start of 2024 to really grab public attention.
[6]Youtube Video
[7]
As tech partner to the Post Office Horizon project, Fujitsu is tasting the effects, and these too [8]are brutal . They will certainly affect its bottom line: the company has said it's not pitching for new [9]public contracts until the inquiry is complete. It may be hard to recover from that.
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The mainstream media is trying to make up for lost time by asking the usual questions: who inside Fujitsu knew what when, who decided the strategy, how culpable is the company for compensation, did its people lie, and so on. All good questions. None is the big one.
A princely paradox
Every corporate crisis looks different inside than out, because every corporate crisis has its roots deep within the company, in places far from view, and with implications that only insiders can appreciate. Take one of the first big UK cyber security cases in 1984, when the public Prestel dial-up system was [12]infiltrated by hackers . Run by British Telecom, ironically enough the renamed Post Office Telephones state telco. Prestel was hacked in the run-up to BT's privatization. As with Horizon, the breach had already been written about to not very great interest: it took the taking over of Prince Philip's account to get public attention.
BT was shaken and embarrassed, but it rode out the story hoping that the one question that it couldn't answer, wouldn't be asked. If pressed, it could break the sale, even the company. If you can't keep the Royal Family safe online, how do you know the other systems you run are secure?
Nobody asked. Nobody asked the obvious follow-up - what other systems do you run? As a state telco, BT was in charge of all internal Government communications, including the highest priority and most secret. The company stood revealed as basically incompetent and the consequences, should anyone think to look, were incalculable. Yet nobody asked, and the moment passed.
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In Fujitsu's case, much the same applies, though the full extent of the company's own responsibility has yet to be identified. If your Horizon project went so badly wrong, how can we have confidence that your other projects aren't broken? Then the follow-ups: what projects are there? How can we trust what you and your partners say about them? Let's see the evidence. The good thing about such questions is that they demand actual, enumerable answers. State IT procurement, like its corporate sibling, is normally hidden behind walls of denial, of "commercial confidentiality," or blame ping-pong. Unlike corporate procurement, there is a cast iron case for transparency in the public interest, but that case only takes flight with political will. The Horizon scandal has the potential to fire that up - if we ask the right questions.
It goes further. This scandal is unique, not because Fujitsu is exceptionally bad - until the inquiry concludes, we won't know what Fujitsu is - but because its client, the [14]Post Office , had the very unusual power to bring [15]private criminal prosecutions . It used the threat and the actuality of that power to avoid the responsibilities of a failed project. Most of the story is banal, reiterating any organization's use of any and all options it has to bolster a cover-up, once it has decided to take that path. Indeed, digging in ever deeper until overwhelming cataclysm consumes all is the very stuff of tragedy. It's just in this case, the Post Office's digging tools included the [16]Bagger 288 .
[17]Home Office slams PNC tech team: 'Inadequate testing' of new code contributed to loss of 413,000 records
[18]A history of personal computing in 20 objects part 1
[19]UK.gov: You didn't trust us with your ID, so we gave it to private biz
[20]Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs
As the TV drama proves, great tragedy provides the power to make people care. Until Mr Bates vs The Post Office , plenty of people knew about the scandal, and sympathized, but - shrug - what can you do? That sense of an injustice too embedded to oppose is fractal, running from personal power relations at work through departmental inertia all the way to impermeable orbital command of the C-suite. It's a universal truth. Until it isn't.
If ten people in Fujitsu stood up and said 'No, let's not do this,' or ten of their Post Office equivalents sent just one email, things would be different. It doesn't even have to be that dramatic - there are a thousand ways to say no constructively. But you have to have conversations first. The point of a good morality tale, which is where Horizon has become, is not to say 'Look at the bad people' but 'That could be us."
For those who work in IT building and selling the systems that run our lives, Fujitsu is a once in a generation opportunity to start those conversations, to demand answers and to offer determination that no, it won't be us. Every byte we write that touches the world has consequences. Let's talk about that, for a change. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2013/07/09/post_office_admits_false_accusations_after_computer_system_cockup/
[2] https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/11/ukgov_post_office_fujitsu_horizon_review/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/11/post_office_horizon_scandal_first_subpostmasters_cleared/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k-1kZz7IeU
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k-1kZz7IeU
[7] 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=2Za5K3qkj@KBlRikOhxJN-QAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/fujitsu_gets_1_billion_market/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/19/fujitsu_pauses_uk_public_sector_contracts/
[10] 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=44Za5K3qkj@KBlRikOhxJN-QAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] 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=33Za5K3qkj@KBlRikOhxJN-QAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/26/prestel_hack_anniversary_prince_philip_computer_misuse/
[13] 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=44Za5K3qkj@KBlRikOhxJN-QAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.postoffice.co.uk/
[15] https://theweek.com/law/how-the-post-office-got-its-prosecution-powers
[16] https://youtu.be/azEvfD4C6ow?si=jWVMmBAtoJdvOHLI
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/home_office_slams_pnc_tech/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/01/a_history_of_computing_in_20_objects_part_one/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2012/12/29/fiveash_year_in_review/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/fujitsu_gets_1_billion_market/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
We need more articles like this one
Keep jabbing the finger at the sore until someone decides to fix things - and not just the code.
This kind of conversation is needed at a global level. Why do private companies like Fujitsu or Capita never seem to be held accountable for their shambolic performance ?
Why do they continue getting awarded new contracts ?
Yes, I know Fujitsu has declared not answering tenders until this matter is resolved, but that does not change the fact that, if it hadn't made this decision, somebody would have awarded Fujitsu a new contract. Who is that somebody and why is that person not under fire for continually awarding gobs of money to companies that do not actually provide a good service ?
I really do hope that public opinion is, for once, going to sit up and take notice, and demand action from the elected gobshites that surf as far away from trouble as they can.
Your hard-earned money is being wasted and the people in power don't care. It is high time you remind them that they work for you .
Re: We need more articles like this one
or C r apita
FTFY
Re: We need more articles like this one
Or Civica
Re: We need more articles like this one
A cynic might regard Fujitsu's saying they won't tender for contracts pro tem as a warning shot across the government's bows.
Re: We need more articles like this one
Anyone involved in bidding for government work will know the answer - it involves long, complex RFIs demanding lots of meaningless tick-box qualifications, statements about DEI practices, etc. so that only large players can afford to bid, and smaller (often cheaper and more competent) organisations are effectively blocked. In the end, it's too often a choice between Fujitsu or Capita. And this applies far more widely than just IT projects.
I fail to understand
Why Paula Vennels, plus the rest of the PO board and the Fujitsu board of the time and since, haven't already been prosecuted and imprisoned for perverting the course of justice fraud, perjury, misconduct in public office, false accounting, libel, false imprisonment. Add, as a special for Paula Vennels: answering to her chosen deity for bearing false witness.
All the above and add returning any and all financial reward they have received individually and collectively in cash or in kind whilst in the positions they held, and since, and have that distributed to all those who suffered at their deceitful. lying hands.
Then substantial fines and or sequestration of their assets.
To say I'm pissed off having to still use the post office for some services I can't shift elsewhere is an understatement.
Re: I fail to understand
HMRC is even worse and they run on Fushitesu systems.
They can't even do a basic thing like assigning correct tax code and notoriously "borrow" money from hard working people by calculating wrong tax.
HMRC really needs to be audited.
> The point of a good morality tale, which is where Horizon has become, is not to say 'Look at the bad people' but 'That could be us."
Hear, hear. Unfortunately, that point gets missed more and more frequently as the "righteous wrath" culture gets ever stronger. Getting mad is the new high. Punishment is its own objective. Cult-like faith in the notion that harsh sentences will deter further miscreants, an effect that has pretty much zero proof of existance.
Actually fixing the underlying cultural problems is a secondary concern at best. Probably because it would involve actual work, changing stuff we've been doing since forever, and who would want that ?
Cult-like faith in the notion that harsh sentences will deter further miscreants, an effect that has pretty much zero proof of existance.
Any sentences at all would be a start - that would make people think twice. At the moment the worst decisions imaginable [1]receive gongs .
One said Ms Vennells was being rewarded for taking a tough approach to the scandal in an effort to keep costs down for the Post Office, including refusing to acknowledge wrongdoing towards postmasters.
“This was her reward for bending her conscience and holding the line,” the source told the newspaper.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/horizon-it-post-office-scandal-theresa-may-vennells-b2478339.html
Generous
They will certainly affect its bottom line: the company has said it's not pitching for new public contracts until the inquiry is complete. It may be hard to recover from that.
So kind of them. In reality all their existing contracts should be cancelled and reviewed.
There is such a massive breach of trust, we cannot have any other public services run by this company, given the circumstances, cover ups and so on.
I'd say Fushitesu should get Huawei treatment and be booted out from the country.
Re: Generous
"In reality all their existing contracts should be cancelled and reviewed."
OK. So we cancel all their contracts. Whatever they're doing for whatever department stops, today. What do those departments do tomorrow?
Re: Generous
Whatever they're doing for whatever department stops, today.
That's not how it works. Government could appoint administrators that could take over the operations (the company would no longer be in control) and continue to run services until a company that could take over could be found.
The other way is to pass legislation that will nationalise the company and bring all operations "in-house".
This will also give a signal to cowboy corporations that their gravy train reached the final station.
Many many more people damaged
This article grossly understates the damage. There were over 900 prosecutions of subpostmasters, but many many more people had their lives damaged or ruined. The Post Office falsely demanded money from many that it never prosecuted and suspicion fell on all the staff in a branch. Families were ruined through the feelings of guilt and shame. Friendships were lost and whole communities were affected. The stress caused suicides and illness. In a few cases the friendships were so strong that the community were brought together but even so the stress caused by the untrustworthy evidence from Horizon and bullying by enforcers was enormous. The current Post Office and Fujitsu organisations need to be replaced with bosses losing their jobs.
"Nobody asked the obvious follow-up - what other systems do you run?"
Actually, BT asked that question of itself. It was called the Argent project, named after a director in charge. I know because I had the job of handling it in the ruin-up to my retirement. It was handled with all the thoroughness of an ISO9000 exercise. As I'd retired by the time it was complete I've no idea of any real changes that resulted.
the Post Office, had the very unusual power to bring private criminal prosecutions
"the Post Office, had the very unusual power to bring private criminal prosecutions"
Just like Railway Operating Companies (ROCs).
I found this out myself in 2008 when the then South West Trains prosecuted me, initially for fare evasion (two of their staff provided written statements confirming I had my valid season ticket & photocard with me and that it had been checked when requested etc.). Then when I stood up to them and agreed to go to court they changed the summons for an obscure Act from the 1870's about opening a gate! That naturally failed when they apparantly deleted the CCTV evidence - which then confused the court - when I provided it myself.
Having been warned they were not able to provide the CCTV evidence, I went to their system and obtained images myself showing I could not possibly have opened the gate.
What I realised was that they were not following the CPS guidlelines for prosection and I wrote to the then DPP, Kier Starmer, asking to have the case thrown out. He wrote back and advised me of the status of ROCs and that he couldn't help.
I wonder how many of the Post Office's prosecutions would have failed if they had been challenged by Starmer and his team?
It's still happening
25 years later, [1]it's still happening .
Not one damn manager in Fujitsu or the PO saw fit to prioritise getting these bugs fixed in a quarter of a century.
There's a problem all right, but it's not with the developers.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/post-office-horizon-payment-postmaster-b2481690.html