Botched Publish Workplace IT tasks proceed to empty public purse
As the federal government arms the Publish Workplace £400m in public funds to interchange its controversial Horizon system, particulars emerge of thousands and thousands extra wasted on account of botched IT.
The most recent prices come because the Publish Workplace agrees to pay thousands and thousands of kilos in compensation to scandal victims hit by a knowledge breach final 12 months. Pc Weekly can even reveal that the Publish Workplace paid IBM about £10m when it deserted a Horizon alternative challenge in 2015.
The Publish Workplace scandal, which induced devastation to its victims, is costing UK taxpayers billions of kilos. However whereas the prices related to monetary redress and authorized battles steal the headlines, the Publish Workplace has been haemorrhaging funds in its IT division.
As Pc Weekly revealed in March, the Publish Workplace made interim compensation gives to various former subpostmasters affected by the main information breach. The breach was attributable to human error throughout a challenge to improve a web site, which resulted in a hyperlink to an unredacted doc being put on-line, somewhat than the redacted doc.
The 555 members of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) who took half within the 2018/19 group litigation motion had their names and addresses uncovered on the web site.
The Publish Workplace has confirmed it should pay the affected subpostmasters compensation.
“Publish Workplace can affirm that it has agreed to pay people whose names appeared in final 12 months’s information breach both £5,000 or £3,500, relying on whether or not the person was additionally dwelling on the [leaked] deal with at the moment,” mentioned a spokesperson. “Publish Workplace has confirmed that it’ll contemplate any particular circumstances if any people contemplate they’re entitled to additional quantities.”
That is but extra money wasted on account of Publish Workplace IT errors.
Mounting prices
Final week’s announcement that the organisation is formally looking for a provider to interchange Horizon additionally signalled an finish to its in-house New Department IT (NBIT) challenge – one other failed initiative. The challenge was canned after a authorities report final 12 months discovered that budgets ballooned from £180m to £1.1bn and implementation was delayed by as a lot as 5 years.
Throughout his look on the Publish Workplace scandal public inquiry in October 2024, Publish Workplace chairman Nigel Railton mentioned the corporate’s choice to construct the NBIT system in-house was one among two causes the challenge was “set as much as fail”.
The delays and errors price cash. For instance, as revealed by Pc Weekly in October final 12 months, the Publish Workplace was paying greater than £80,000 per week for contracted IT engineers to sit down idle resulting from main delays within the NBIT challenge. The Publish Workplace additionally acquired {hardware} for NBIT, which is now being repurposed to run with the present system.
NBIT was not the primary pricey failed try to interchange Horizon. In 2015, a challenge to interchange it with IBM expertise was scrapped when it turned too advanced. IBM was paid what Pc Weekly can reveal was within the area of £10m to stroll away.
Rather more lately, the Publish Workplace deserted one other challenge at big price to taxpayers. Final 12 months, Saf Ismail, subpostmaster and non-executive director on the Publish Workplace, instructed the general public inquiry that £35m was spent on an deserted plan emigrate from its datacentre in Northern Eire to the cloud.
The deliberate cloud migration in Belfast was halted resulting from complexity, Ismail mentioned in his witness assertion to the inquiry.
There’s additionally a challenge on pause, which plans emigrate Horizon information from Fujitsu programs to the Publish Workplace’s. The pause was carried out after the Metropolitan Police, which is at present investigating potential crimes within the Publish Workplace scandal, put the brakes on till it was happy with the strategy. Pc Weekly has no particulars of the prices associated to this delay.
Within the meantime, the Publish Workplace has been extending Fujitsu’s keep on the coronary heart of its IT, with its present £40m deal set to run out in March 2026.
Pc Weekly first uncovered the scandal in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered resulting from Horizon accounting software program, which led to essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past (see beneath timeline of Pc Weekly articles concerning the scandal since 2009).
