Peer James Arbuthnot has warned suppliers to “think twice” before partnering with Fujitsu on government contracts, to avoid being “tarred by the Fujitsu brush”.
Fujitsu’s central role in the Post Office scandal entered wider public consciousness in January 2024, following the broadcast of an ITV drama.
Despite its self-imposed ban on bidding for government business in response, Fujitsu has won over half a billion pounds’ worth of government contracts since, according to figures from Tussell. But these figures only take into account deals where Fujitsu is the prime contractor, missing millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash heading in the supplier’s direction through subcontracts.
In its latest government procurement round-up, Tussell revealed the £510m value of government contracts, signed by Fujitsu as prime contractor, since the ITV drama aired in January 2024.
Computer Weekly reported last month that Fujitsu bagged £450m in government contracts in its last 12-month business period, including over £300m in contracts with HM Revenue & Customs.
But Fujitsu’s UK public sector business goes beyond what is reported, with subcontracts worth millions, not made public and as revealed by Computer Weekly in April last year, Fujitsu was actively promoting winning business through subcontracts to negate its own bidding pause rules.
In the aftermath of Fujitsu’s self-imposed bidding ban, and in response to a question in a company forum, Dave Riley, then head of public sector at Fujitsu UK, explained the possibility of using other suppliers as partners to get around the restrictions. At the time, he wrote that he engaged in these discussions and that “the current Cabinet Office position is: where we bid with a partner, it is up to the partner to decide if they are comfortable to work with them, so not currently subject to the gateway checks of us bidding”.
Peer and Post Office scandal campaigner James Arbuthnot, who said he would not be surprised if Fujitsu targeted subcontracts to get around its own sanctions, warned suppliers to “think twice” about cooperating with Fujitsu to help it win government business.
The Japanese IT supplier’s promise to stop bidding for public sector business when the Post Office scandal finally entered wide public debate was a paltry offering steeped in caveats.
“I would have thought it would be a mistake for other companies to be associated with them, because they will be tarred with the Fujitsu brush,” said Arbuthnot.
He added that he expects the Post Office scandal public inquiry’s second report to be highly critical of Fujitsu. “[Other suppliers] would want to think twice about working alongside a company that has shown it can produce a useless product, then lie about it in court, and even connive in people being sent to prison on the back of that useless product.”
When Fujitsu made its promise to pause bids last year, it left the door open to working as a subcontractor, with other IT suppliers, rather than a prime supplier.
Computer Weekly asked Fujitsu whether it was still targeting subcontracts. The troubled supplier said: “We continue to work with the UK government to ensure we adhere to the voluntary restrictions we put in place regarding bidding for new contracts while the Post Office inquiry is ongoing.”
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 Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
