UK Home Office hands Fujitsu contracts worth £25m

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The UK Home Office has awarded two contracts worth almost £25 million to Fujitsu since the July general election, despite Labor MPs criticizing the awards to the company at the center of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal when the party was in opposition.

The government department awarded Fujitsu a £9.6m contract for the procurement of hardware equipment and a separate £15m contract for the ongoing provision of law enforcement software services, according to data from the government published last month and in November.

The decision to award the contracts, worth a combined £24.6m and set to start in October, came after prominent Labor MPs joined other politicians last year in calling for the Japanese technology company to be banned receive state contracts due to their role in the Horizon scandal. .

More than 900 Post Office branch managers were convicted between 1999 and 2015 in cases involving faulty data in Horizon accounting software developed by Fujitsu.

A public outcry over the scandal, considered the biggest miscarriage of justice in modern British history, led the previous Conservative government last year to introduce legislation to overturn the convictions.

Jo Maugham, chief executive of campaign group Good Law Project, said: “It really is a slap in the face to the victims of the Post Office scandal for Fujitsu to be awarded new multi-million pound government contracts while they continue to wait for adequate compensation. .”

In January last year, Fujitsu said it would voluntarily not bid for government contracts until the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal ended, except in cases of “existing relationships with customers or an agreed need for Fujitsu skills and capabilities.” .

Liam Byrne, a Labor MP and chairman of the House of Commons business and commerce committee, had said that month that it was “vital that there is now a moratorium on new contracts for Fujitsu until we get to the bottom of this terrible miscarriage of justice.”

Kevan Jones, then a Labor MP and member of Horizon’s Compensation Advisory Board which oversees compensation related to the scandal, also called at the time for a moratorium until the company “gave a full explanation of what they did”.

Fujitsu has won some public sector contracts since making the commitment. But its decision to restrict such tenders destroyed the value of good will on the balance sheet of its UK business, which recorded an impairment of £78.6m in the year to March 2024.

The Financial Times reported in November that Fujitsu had been £1.4m awarded in UK public sector contracts since he said he would suspend the tender for them. The company is also one of 39 listed by the Cabinet as a “strategic supplier”.

Since then, Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner has also awarded Fujitsu a £247,481.20 contract for the renewal of charges for colocation data center services, government data published in December showed.

Marc Jones, Lincolnshire police and crime commissioner, said the contract was a “short-term extension of a contract dating back more than a decade”, originally agreed by a contractor, and that it was “critical that the police Lincolnshire had the time necessary to find the best alternative.”

Former subpostmasters have criticized the administration of compensation systems, citing the time it takes to process claims and the sums of money on offer.

Last week, the House of Commons business committee urged the government to set binding deadlines for processing claims, with financial penalties to be imposed on the claimant if deadlines are not met.

Maugham said Labor in opposition had been “very explicit about the need for a moratorium on new Fujitsu contracts. But now that they are in government, one wonders what has changed.”

The government said that “these contracts are in line with Fujitsu’s approach to tendering for public contracts” and that “it has become clear that those responsible for the Horizon scandal must be held accountable.”

He added: “Before further action can be taken, we must wait for the Horizon Research to conclude.”

Fujitsu said it was “working with the UK government to ensure we comply with the voluntary restrictions we put in place regarding bidding for new contracts while the Post Office investigation is ongoing.”

He added: “Based on the results of the investigation, we will work with the government on appropriate actions, including contributing to compensation. “We continue to offer our sincerest apologies to the subpostmasters and their families.”