Fujitsu – where are you??

Fujitsu – where are you?

Where have you been for the past 15 years or more, whilst you have been happily accepting Government contracts of between £200M and £400M of UK tax payers money per year? I’m not a database expert yet even I know that if you have a maintenance contract, with ongoing monitoring and supply management – that if your bespoke product has even the inkling of giving wrong readings –  that given your client is a nationally recognized and household brand, in The Post Office, and given that the expedition of your service is conducted through third party small business subcontractors, who actually are your client base – then for me, equal culpability to that of the Post Office, lies with Fujitsu.

Companies have been speaking about Corporate Social Responsibility for over a decade, and yet there can be no other case with as much social responsibility, liability, or moreover moral obligation, as this Post Office scandal? The fact that Fujitsu have not lead from the front in terms of any visible attempt at restitution whatsoever, let alone a corporate PR mea culpa, is in my eyes absolutely astonishing. Were I a legislator, I personally would recommend they be excluded from tendering for future Government contracts for a period of at least 10 years – or arguably as long as the time that has elapsed since the first warning of their systems failure was brought to their attention.

These IT behemoths cannot take it as a given that UK Government – or indeed any government – is beholden to their services. This is what a competitive tendering system is for. Every facet of contract management in the promotion, maintenance and continuation of the Horizon platform needs to be scrutinized by forensic IT and legal specialists, and I would propose a framework for the exiting of the use of the Horizon platform, and its replacement. This is what database management companies do when they take over legacy systems, no matter how complex those systems are, and I am skeptical that the Post Office settlement system is anywhere near as complicated as legacy NHS patient databases, that have been in the process of migration for many years.

It is possible. As the outrage that has finally been provoked and the furore that this has caused, it is also necessary. Every single penny UK Government pays sub-postmasters in compensation should be refunded directly by Fujitsu, and I would argue, more.

Fujitsu should have been all over this; their corporate reputation should not survive, and there are numerous other cases were companies have imploded when they are guilty of such commercial and arguably, moral, failure.

#Fujitsu #Horizon #postoffice #CSR