“We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system. And we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters. For that we are truly sorry.” As admissions go, this one from Paul Patterson, the head of Fujitsu Europe, was uncharacteristically candid. For almost two decades, the Post Office, supported by Fujitsu, falsely prosecuted nearly a thousand sub-postmasters rather than admit the Horizon system was flawed. It took years of litigation, campaigning and an ITV drama to force Fujitsu to admit the truth so publicly. Ministers are now talking tough about consequences. In reality, the company is far too influential to be held truly accountable.
Fujitsu’s role in the Post Office scandal has provoked understandable outrage. From the earliest trials in 1999, internal reports show Horizon (which Fujitsu designed and maintained) caused “severe difficulties” for users. The system repeatedly and erroneously showed money missing from branch accounts. Rather than fix the problems, the Post Office and Fujitsu rolled Horizon out nationally. When discrepancies inevitably occurred, they prosecuted the sub-postmasters. Fujitsu provided expert evidence asserting the reliability of Horizon and explaining how it had “caught” the sub-postmasters. Two Fujitsu witnesses are now themselves under police investigation. Fujitsu denied, until recently, that sub-postmasters’ Horizon terminals could be accessed remotely. But the company knew (or should have known) that this was not true as early as 2001.
It’s no surprise, then, that ministers (at least in public) are now railing against Fujitsu. Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, suggested the company may have to repay the “fortune” spent on the scandal. The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, has “demanded” talks about Fujitsu’s contribution to the compensation scheme for victims. Any attempt by the government to use the courts to force Fujitsu to pay up will face headwinds. Patterson told MPs that Fujitsu had a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme. His choice of language is telling; the words allow Fujitsu to appear contrite without admitting any legal – and therefore enforceable – liability. The Post Office’s decision to hide the scandal for so long may work against the government. Most legal claims must be brought within six years of the claimant having knowledge of the basis of the claim. The Post Office has likely known about the problems with Horizon for well over a decade.
Accountability is, more broadly, a foreign concept for Fujitsu. It has a history of failing to deliver on its UK contracts but rarely faces consequences. In 2011, Fujitsu was fired from a £6.2bn project to revamp an NHS IT system after repeatedly failing to achieve its objectives. Fujitsu sued the government. The eventual payout was never disclosed, but it could be as much as £628m. In 2021, the Foreign Office determined that a communications system provided by Fujitsu had “significant deficiencies resulting in a technical solution that is likely to be unfit for purpose”. It renewed Fujitsu’s contract anyway. In December, the company was awarded a new contract by the Environment Agency for a flood alert system; Fujitsu’s product reportedly failed to alert people until their houses were already flooded. Between 2010 and 2015, civil servants tried to stop commissioning Fujitsu because of its history of poor performance. They found the UK’s archaic public procurement rules wouldn’t permit it.
Thus, despite its history of failure, Fujitsu’s tentacles spread throughout the “public” sector. It provides major IT systems to, among others, the Ministries of Defence and Justice, HMRC, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It has been awarded 36 new contracts in the past 12 months. Since 2019, when the full extent of the Horizon failure was uncovered by the High Court, ministers have given Fujitsu £4.9bn worth of new business (including renewing its Horizon contract). Ironically, Fujitsu also runs the database of criminal records, which must be updated to reflect the quashing of the abusive convictions that Fujitsu helped secure. Fujitsu has announced that it won’t bid for new public contracts while the Post Office inquiry continues.
Fujitsu’s reach extends into politics. The company donates to both Labour and the Conservatives, paying around £26,000 every year to host “lounges” at each party’s conference. Simon Blagden, Fujitsu UK’s chair until 2019, is a long-term Conservative donor. He has been part of the exclusive “Leader’s Group”, where “members are invited to join [the party leader] and other senior figures… at dinners”. Last year, Blagden was appointed to the UK Health Security Agency advisory board. He is paid around £80,000 a year from the public purse. Fujitsu’s senior UK lobbyist, Clark Vasey, founded the Blue Collar Conservatism parliamentary group with (now) “minister for common sense” Esther McVey. Michael Keegan (husband of Gillian Keegan, the education secretary) was CEO and then chair of Fujitsu UK between 2014 and 2018, and is a “Crown representative” of the Cabinet Office, one of the officials who oversee relationships with public sector suppliers.
It seems likely Fujitsu will make some sort of token payment towards compensation. This may even be a sizeable sum. But it will be a minor dent in the billions that Fujitsu makes from the British taxpayer. The reality is that Fujitsu doesn’t need to make products that work well. It doesn’t need to be honest about its failures. Until they were found out, Fujitsu, the Post Office, and even ministers were happy to let sub-postmasters pay the price for Fujitsu to keep making profits from the public purse. When you have Fujitsu’s access and influence, real accountability is for other people.
Sam Fowles is a barrister, author and broadcaster. He was part of the legal team that successfully overturned the convictions of 39 sub-postmasters in the Court of Appeal in 2021
• This article was amended on 22 January 2024. An earlier version said Michael Keegan was “CEO of Fujitsu UK until 2018”; in fact he was CEO from 2014 to 2015, and then chair until 2018. The reference to his role as a Crown Representative has also been clarified; he is responsible for overseeing only one supplier, BAE Systems, and he has asked us to make clear that the role has no involvement in awarding contracts.
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