The Submit Workplace created a brand new contract and awarded it with out aggressive tender to an IT provider that challenged its choice to award a £169m IT contract to OneView Commerce.
One authorized skilled mentioned there had “clearly been a procurement screw-up” and questioned how this could affect the whole price to taxpayers.
Digital point-of-sale (EPOS) specialist Escher challenged the Submit Workplace’s choice to award the contract, created to interchange the system on the centre of the Submit Workplace scandal, to cloud-based software program supplier OneView on the grounds that it was incorrectly awarded, in accordance with a supply.
The contract for Lot 2 of the Horizon substitute tender was agreed in Could and initially set to be formally signed off in the beginning of June. But it surely was delayed six occasions resulting from extensions to the standoff interval. Laptop Weekly revealed earlier this month that the delays have been as a result of problem from Escher.
The opposite contract within the Horizon substitute plan – Lot 1, a £322.8m contract to run Horizon – was received by Accenture and formally signed off months in the past.
Submit Workplace awards contract on to Escher
Amid the Escher problem, on 7 August, the Submit Workplace created a brand new contract and awarded it on to the provider. This contract is for Escher’s proprietary Product Journey Engine (PJE). Taxpayers pays £14m in its first yr for growth and configuration. Licensing and assist for later years shall be individually procured.
The Submit Workplace mentioned: “This was a UK5 Transparency Discover and is used the place the authority intends to make a direct award with out operating a aggressive procurement. The discover offers transparency to the market by setting out the authority’s intention to award the contract immediately and the justification for doing so underneath the provisions of the Procurement Act 2023.”
They’ve coated themselves when it comes to course of, however there’s clearly been a screw-up within the procurement course of IT outsourcing lawyer
One specialist IT outsourcing lawyer, who wished to stay nameless, mentioned: “They’ve coated themselves when it comes to course of, however there’s clearly been a screw-up within the procurement course of, which is why they’ve needed to award this separate contract, and I feel the larger story is what the whole price to the general public sector is.”
The Submit Workplace has repeatedly refused to touch upon the problem by Escher, which in accordance with sources included a menace to sue for lack of earnings. The federal government, which owns the Submit Workplace, and Escher additionally refused to remark.
Following Laptop Weekly’s newest questions on the topic, a Submit Workplace spokesperson mentioned: “As required underneath the Procurement Act 2023, there’s a necessary standstill interval earlier than a contract might be entered into. Any interactions with bidders throughout this era are commercially confidential and, as such, it will be inappropriate for us to remark as as to if any particular person provider raised considerations about or challenged the Lot 2 contract that was awarded by the Submit Workplace.”
On the brand new contract, the Submit Workplace tender discover mentioned: “As a part of the programme, the Submit Workplace has recognized a requirement for Escher’s PJE – a standalone, independently licensable software program module incorporating Escher’s proprietary framework, instruments and a library of postal-retail buyer journeys, comprising three journeys preconfigured for mail-related transactions, an extra 10 journeys to be configured by Escher, with the remaining journeys to be configured by POL [Post Office Limited]. The PJE is required to allow advanced transactions to be configured, tailored and deployed quickly inside POL’s structure and broader transformation programme.”
Escher hyperlink to Horizon
Escher has a historic hyperlink to Horizon. As a part of the controversial Horizon system, the Submit Workplace used middleware from Escher, referred to as Riposte, and the Fujitsu-designed software program was written onto it.
There isn’t any suggestion the Escher software program was at fault. A supply, who labored within the growth of the unique Horizon EPOS system within the Nineties, informed Laptop Weekly in 2021 that the massive flaw in Horizon was the way in which knowledge was being written to Riposte.
In July 2025, Laptop Weekly discovered that two former Submit Workplace executives, who served for many years on the Submit Workplace, together with in senior roles, have been within the Escher crew bidding for the Horizon substitute contract. Though Escher was not at fault, many see the corporate as being an unpalatable selection, notably with former Submit Workplace employees working within the bidding crew.
The transfer to an off-the-shelf EPOS system was supposed to cut back complexity.
The Submit Workplace scandal was first uncovered by Laptop Weekly in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered resulting from Horizon accounting software program, which led to probably the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past (see beneath timeline of Laptop Weekly articles concerning the scandal since 2009).
