HMRC begins escape from Fujitsu’s grip by way of £500m contract
HMRC has begun the method of breaking away from its heavy reliance on Fujitsu for IT companies, with a tender price £500m designed to exit the provider’s companies.
Within the clearest signal that HMRC is able to break free from Fujitsu amid public stress in relation to the Publish Workplace scandal, it’s on the lookout for a provider for a 10-year Information Centre Exit (DCE) contract, which is able to start in April subsequent yr. The lack of the work mixed with the tip of its Publish Workplace contract may have big ramifications on Fujitsu’s UK enterprise.
HMRC needs a hyperscale cloud supplier to handle the migration from the provider adopted by the supply of cloud internet hosting. In response to the tender, revealed final month: “The first goal of the DCE Programme is to exit three Fujitsu-hosted datacentres and migrate related companies to new vacation spot platforms.”
The provider that wins the HMRC contract will transfer IT companies from Fujitsu’s datacentres to the cloud after which present cloud internet hosting, in accordance with the tender. “Following migration, the chosen provider will present cloud internet hosting capabilities for in-scope companies in a safe cloud surroundings to make sure continuity of companies,” reads the tender discover. “The provider will probably be required to offer a platform able to sustaining enterprise change, in addition to mitigating present safety and resilience issues.”
It was Fujitsu’s software program and errors that induced the unexplained shortfalls in Publish Workplace branches that devastated the lives of these blamed. Fujitsu stood apart because the Publish Workplace wrongly blamed its subpostmasters, regardless of its data of errors.
The UK authorities sector is a big enterprise for Fujitsu, with HMRC the largest single element of this. However since Fujitsu’s involvement within the Publish Workplace scandal, its actions have develop into mainstream public curiosity information, and the federal government has been underneath extreme public and political stress to chop ties with it.
HMRC is described as Fujitsu’s UK public sector “money cow”, with big contracts concerned. The provider has already landed £123m of taxpayer cash from the division this yr, as a part of its contracts price billions of kilos. In response to the newest HMRC spending figures, which embrace all contracts price over £25,000, in March this yr alone, the division spent £80m with Fujitsu. Different HMRC spending with Fujitsu in March included about £4.9m for different IT {hardware}, £4.9m for bodily internet hosting and infrastructure, £4.6m for IT software program licenses and help, and £1.7m for desktop companies.
Publish Workplace contract
Fujitsu has additionally been dumped from its lucrative-but-controversial contract with the government-owned Publish Workplace, and its contract lastly ends in March subsequent yr.
Peer James Arbuthnot, a long-time campaigner for justice for subpostmasters, instructed Pc Weekly the federal government ought to cease handing Fujitsu profitable contracts.
“Let’s not overlook it was Fujitsu that was altering the subpostmasters’ accounts remotely, whereas denying it was doing it and never preserving a document of what they had been doing,” he stated. “It was Fujitsu that, figuring out of the bugs and faults of their software program, had been swearing on oath in court docket that these bugs and faults didn’t exist. And it was Fujitsu that then watched the subpostmasters be convicted because of Fujitsu’s lies, and stood again as hundreds of lives had been ruined.”
Fujitsu has lastly agreed to barter its contribution in direction of the large prices of the scandal. In March, the federal government introduced there was an settlement to start talks on compensation. Fujitsu has beforehand acknowledged it could wait till the general public inquiry’s conclusion earlier than committing to talks. The general public inquiry has completed its public hearings and there’s no date for the publication of the report from chair Wynn Williams.
Pc Weekly first uncovered the scandal in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered as a consequence of Horizon accounting software program, which led to essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past (see under timeline of Pc Weekly articles in regards to the scandal since 2009).
