The Post Office has delayed signing the Horizon software replacement contract for the sixth time, with sources claiming the losing bidder is challenging the award.
Meanwhile, subpostmasters have accused Fujitsu of “taking its foot off the pedal” after it lost the contract but retained the role in the interim.
The formal signing of the contract with OneView Commerce has now been delayed six times since the award was first announced in May. The previous standstill period, which expired yesterday, has been extended to 21 August, with the earliest it could be signed off now 22 August.
Anxiety is increasing among subpostmasters as delays in replacing the software at the centre of the Post Office scandal cause uncertainty.
In May, the Post Office announced that suppliers Accenture and OneView Commerce would replace Fujitsu and Horizon, with Accenture taking Lot 1 of the contract, a £322.8m contract to run Horizon, and Lot 2 to replace the software, worth £169.2m, going to cloud-based electronic point of sale (EPOS) supplier OneView Commerce.
While the Accenture contract was formally signed off, the contract signing with OneView Commerce has been repeatedly delayed.
One source said he understands that the contract is being challenged by the unsuccessful bidder shortlisted for the contract, Escher.
Escher has history with the Post Office. As part of the controversial Horizon system, the Post Office used middleware from Escher, known as Riposte, onto which the Fujitsu-designed software was written. There is no suggestion the Escher software was at fault, but a source, who worked on the development of the original Horizon system in the 1990s, told Computer Weekly in 2021 that the big flaw in Horizon was the way data was being written to Riposte.
Delays cause anxiety for thousands of subpostmasters
A subpostmaster, who wished to remain anonymous, told Computer Weekly: “These continuous standstill delays on the new system are so punishing for us. We are being left to run our businesses on a system managed by a company that already has one foot out the door.”
He added: “There is a very real sense on the ground that Fujitsu is checking out because they know they are losing the contract.”
These delays are so punishing for us. We are being left to run our businesses on a system managed by a company that already has one foot out the door Subpostmaster
The subpostmaster said the degradation in daily performance of Horizon is noticeable: “It feels like Fujitsu has completely taken its foot off the gas since the replacement was confirmed. Before, the system was bad, but at least there was a pretence of support. Now, it feels like they are just running down the clock. When things crash or glitch, getting a resolution takes much longer.”
He pointed out that during the interim period, outgoing suppliers lose incentive. “What is today a bad situation then suddenly gets 10 times worse,” he said.
A Fujitsu spokesperson said: “Horizon is a highly complex system made up of about 40 different applications, which currently supports nearly 10,000 Post Office branches across the country. We continue to work with the Post Office to maintain Horizon and deliver critical services as they move to a new delivery model.”
The Post Office said: “Today we communicate openly and transparently with postmasters by publishing any issues that could have a significant operational impact, or any financial impact at all, on our Branch Hub platform. The most recent issue to be published was in early June.
“We fully recognise how frustrating it is for postmasters and our partners if Horizon is not functioning as it should. It’s important to recognise that sometimes issues can be caused by outside factors such as a loss of connectivity impacting cellular connection to the network or a partner experiencing an outage that means we cannot process a transaction on their behalf until their issue is fixed.”
A UK government spokesperson said: “While the Post Office is focused on moving away from Fujitsu and Horizon to a new system, they continue to monitor Horizon to ensure that the system is safe and reliable. Any subpostmaster experiencing issues with the current Horizon IT system should be raised with Post Office, who will fully investigate any issues raised.”
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to the accounting software (see timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal below).
