The Post Office Horizon Scandal

[Rodcx500z]

What i want to know is why are Fujitsu still being awarded government contracts, only last year they made 22 million quid profit.
Here is a snapshot Fujitsu has made almost £7bn from 200 IT contracts since 2012. Its four biggest repeat customers are the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, ... This is beginning to stink to high heaven

 

[Nicks90]

Why wouldn't they?
It's just shear bad luck this was Fujitsu, but it could easily have been any of the other big IT companies.
Let's not forget, any - ANY - major IT system always has bugs and an error log. Always.

It's what the customer does that makes the difference. If your customer edits data and statements and uses that erroneously to prosecute people for theft and then makes them sign NDA to absolve the company of IT errors, then that's the customer at fault. Not the supplier.

Have a read of this article and tell me why Fujitsu should be singles out specifically
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...still-on-uk-governments-list-of-top-suppliers

Companies that have paid hundreds of millions in fines and penalties, have defrauded Whitehall or have faced corruption investigations are among those making the most money from UK government outsourcing, the Observer can reveal.

Observer analysis of data from UK regulators has found the Strategic Suppliers, the 40 private companies that play the biggest role in running outsourced government services, have received well over £500m in financial penalties from regulators since 2010.

Only six of the 40 had not been reprimanded by regulators, with many receiving tens of millions in fines without losing their place as a Strategic Supplier.
One of the biggest fines came in 2020 after the company was found to have defrauded the Ministry of Justice by charging for the electronic monitoring of thousands of offenders who were then found to have returned to prison or even died.
Serco has been handed more than £56m in fines since 2010, including for defrauding the government, but has since won billions of pounds in government contracts as one of its top five biggest outsourcing partners, including to run the government’s much-criticised track and trace programme during the pandemic and to manage asylum seeker accommodation
KPMG has had £65m in penalties since 2010 in relation to 36 cases almost all relating to accounting fraud or other financial offences. Infamously, tt was found to have forged documents and misled regulators over audits for companies including the now-collapsed Carillion, also once one of the Strategic Supplier

 

[MattH1973]

What i want to know is why are Fujitsu still being awarded government contracts, only last year they made 22 million quid profit.
Here is a snapshot Fujitsu has made almost £7bn from 200 IT contracts since 2012. Its four biggest repeat customers are the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, ... This is beginning to stink to high heaven

i found out about a very bizarre quirk in UK procurement rules. Legally, public procurements are not allowed to take note of past performance when deciding on future bids. I dont know if this is an EU hangover that hasn't yet been fixed but it surely needs changing. As things stand, had Fujitsu not decided to step aside, it could continue to bid for government work and challenge the outcome if it lost a bid based on its performance on Horizon.

That said, I agree with the post above the Fujitsu are very unlikely to be a unique case.

 

[MashBag]

not allowed to take note of past performance when deciding on future bids

Yup. This was applied to stop people getting cozy. Welcome to the law of unintended consequence.

 

[Hoppopotamus]

This was a PO system - so they are ultimately responsible for it and the consequences, provided Fujitsu did not hide the bugs. Quite possibly PO management were told in a way such that they did not fully understand what they were being - but we're too blind/stubborn or proud to admit this.
Why did they not stop using Horizon? Probably because it would i) mean admitting they were in the wrong or didn't understand what was wrong & ii) had nothing to replace it with and couldn't shut down the PO network for years.
So instead chose to just "double down" and blame a few "little people" and hope the problem just went away.

 

[Jim Brewster]

Watched one of the recent documentaries, shocking behaviour from the execs at the post office, criminal from the point of view of perverting the course of justice as they basically knew the system was at fault and were sending innocent people to prison.

I can't help but wonder what support the accused received from the unions when a thousand of their members were suddenly accused and convicted of stealing, all at once and all in the same circumstances without any evidence.

 

[Rodcx500z]

All of these postmasters/mistrises had the best years of their lives taken away, just try and imagine how you would feel going from being in charge of the local post office the hub of a community and waking up to all the tongue wagging and your whole life in tatters, the people who did this deserve everything they get, lost pensions jail time let them know how it feels to lose everything they work for

 

[Clint]

I bet nobody will go to prison over this. They probably will just get a jolly good telling off and a top job in another company.
Oh,almost forgot....they will be made to apologise. And that,in their minds will be quite sufficient for the oiks.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I remember asking for one of these for Christmas glad i didn't get it now -






.

 

[Clint]

Yeah you might have been in jail by now.