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Fujitsu faces financial challenges, with doubts over its commitment to righting Post Office wrongs

Fujitsu worker tells Computer Weekly that firm only cares about shareholders and not subpostmaster suffering

Karl Flinders
By
Published: 23 Sep 2024 15:07

Details of falling sales and a £200m cash injection from Japan at Fujitsu UK have emerged, but the supplier’s contribution to the financial redress of subpostmasters affected by the Post Office scandal is no clearer. 

One Fujitsu employee, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “Their priority is Fujitsu’s shareholders, not the subpostmasters, not employees and not customers.”   

As reported by Computer Weekly last week, an internal Fujitsu conference call, labelled “company confidential”, saw a senior manager explain to staff why the IT giant would not be giving staff an annual pay rise this year.

During the call, which Computer Weekly has details of, Dave Riley, Fujitsu UK’s head of public sector, admitted the company had lost more than £50m in business as a result of the Post Office Horizon scandal finally making the public angry.

He also revealed that headquarters in Japan had injected £200m into the UK business to address some financial indicators, which could have prevented it from bidding for UK public sector work. “There is that moral obligation to look after the business and to make sure we can continue to bid for public sector work,” he told staff.

Fujitsu’s head of Europe, Paul Patterson, also discussed a moral obligation when he spoke to MPs earlier this year in the fallout of January’s ITV drama. But on that occasion, it was that the company was “morally obligated” to contribute to the billions of pounds in costs faced by UK taxpayers as a result of the Horizon scandal.

So far, there has been no commitment to a contribution level, with Fujitsu putting a decision off until the public inquiry findings are known.

Adding weight to the view expressed by the Fujitsu worker that Fujitsu might lack commitment to subpostmasters is the IT firm’s hollow promise in January to halt public sector bidding until the current public inquiry is complete. Leaked information revealed that Fujitsu staff were given a flow diagram instructing them how to bid for government contracts during the IT supplier’s self-imposed ban on bidding, which a senior UK executive said was no more than “an extra gateway”.

Computer Weekly asked Fujitsu whether any of the money from Japan would go towards financial redress for subpostmasters. The company said: “[The £200m] is part of a standard and regular corporate review process covering all legal entities worldwide in the Fujitsu group and is routinely performed to ensure the relevant entities are able to appropriately perform their business operations. This action was undertaken to enable FSL [Fujitsu Services Ltd] to appropriately perform all business operations.”

Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of subpostmasters and branch staff were prosecuted by the Post Office and convicted for accounting shortfalls, based on evidence from Fujitsu’s flawed Horizon system. Fujitsu supported the Post Office in prosecuting subpostmasters and gave evidence in court claiming the system did not cause unexplained account shortfalls, despite knowing this could be the case.

In the UK, Fujitsu relies heavily on its large public sector business – a legacy of ICL, which Fujitsu acquired in the late 1990s.

UK taxpayers are currently on the hook for at least £1.15bn to cover the costs of the scandal which saw subpostmasters and their staff blamed and punished for unexplained losses caused by computer errors. But beyond the three financial redress schemes for affected subpostmasters, the cost of lawyers, the public inquiry and the replacement of Horizon will make this figure just an instalment.

The cash injection from Japan raises questions over Fujitsu’s plan to contribute towards the financial redress from subpostmasters.

Fujitsu said it will work with the government to establish its financial contribution “based on the findings of the inquiry”, but the findings of the inquiry will not be known until chair Wyn Williams publishes his report, which is not expected until next year.

Sir Alan Bates, who campaigned for justice for affected subpostmasters for two decades, said Fujitsu “will push it away until Williams reports”, but he said some form of commitment such as a percentage of total costs would be a start.

Because the Post Office scandal remained outside the mainstream for two decades, Fujitsu has managed to avoid negative impacts until recently, when ITV broadcast its drama about the scandal. Despite awareness of the scandal in the government, the multibillion-pound IT giant continued to win lucrative government contracts.

The Post Office looks set to extend Fujitsu’s Horizon contract for another five years at a cost of £180m as it suffers major setbacks introducing its replacement.

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).

• Also read: What you need to know about the Horizon scandal •

• Also watch: ITV’s documentary – Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The real story •

• Also read: Post Office and Fujitsu malevolence and incompetence means huge taxpayers’ bill •

Timeline: Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009

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