The Post Office has paid Fujitsu over £95m to extend the troubled Horizon IT system for two years after a plan to move to Amazon had to be abandoned.
A serving postmaster told the BBC the software is still unreliable, and causes money to disappear.
Costs and delays are still dogging the Horizon project more than two decades after the contracts were first signed.
Costs and delays are still dogging the Horizon project more than two decades after the contracts were first signed.
When Fujitsu won the contract to install computer terminals in over 17,000 Post Office branches around the UK, it called it “the biggest non-military IT project in Europe”, designed to automate and simplify everything from selling stamps to paying pensions.
Nearly 28 years later, it is still in use throughout the country, still plagued with difficulties, and the Post Office is struggling to replace it.
It led to what has been called one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history. Thousands of sub-postmasters who used Horizon to manage their businesses were held accountable for losses which were not their fault, with 983 receiving criminal convictions.
Their plight received new public attention this year when ITV broadcast a drama series about their fight for justice.
Horizon is still in use in UK Post Offices to this day. One postmaster, who runs two Post Offices in the South East of England and spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said the system is still unreliable.
The Post Office has paid Fujitsu over £95m to extend the troubled Horizon IT system for two years after a plan to move to Amazon had to be abandoned.
Costs and delays are still dogging the Horizon project more than two decades after the contracts were first signed.
A serving postmaster told the BBC the software is still unreliable, and causes money to disappear.
When Fujitsu won the contract to install computer terminals in over 17,000 Post Office branches around the UK, it called it “the biggest non-military IT project in Europe”, designed to automate and simplify everything from selling stamps to paying pensions.
Costs and delays are still dogging the Horizon project more than two decades after the contracts were first signed.
Costs and delays are still dogging the Horizon project more than two decades after the contracts were first signed.
When Fujitsu won the contract to install computer terminals in over 17,000 Post Office branches around the UK, it called it “the biggest non-military IT project in Europe”, designed to automate and simplify everything from selling stamps to paying pensions.
Nearly 28 years later, it is still in use throughout the country, still plagued with difficulties, and the Post Office is struggling to replace it.
It led to what has been called one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history. Thousands of sub-postmasters who used Horizon to manage their businesses were held accountable for losses which were not their fault, with 983 receiving criminal convictions.
Their plight received new public attention this year when ITV broadcast a drama series about their fight for justice.
Horizon is still in use in UK Post Offices to this day. One postmaster, who runs two Post Offices in the South East of England and spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said the system is still unreliable.
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