The Submit Workplace’s IT boss mentioned he doesn’t anticipate subpostmasters to easily begin trusting him and his group as a result of they’re new, however to evaluate them on their actions.
In an interview with Pc Weekly, Andy Good, the Submit Workplace’s just lately put in chief transformation officer, additionally mentioned he and his group entered their roles with their “eyes vast open” concerning the challenges forward. “All of us knew what we had been letting ourselves in for,” he mentioned. “We don’t anticipate subpostmasters to simply begin trusting us as a result of we’re new folks, it is going to take time and we need to be judged by our actions. How we present up.”
He mentioned the group is decided to make the Horizon system alternative work for subpostmasters: “We don’t need to simply come out and say, ‘We’re a brand new group and it’ll all be high-quality’ – we need to show it.”
Good informed Pc Weekly he knew little concerning the goings on on the organisation till the ITV dramatisation of the Submit Workplace scandal put it prime of the information headlines. “I’m like most individuals on the road,” he mentioned. “I used to be in all probability vaguely conscious of the Horizon scandal earlier than the ITV drama.”
Good mentioned he and his workers have been moved by what they’ve realized concerning the scandal up to now 12 months, and need to make things better.
Though the brand new IT management group wasn’t concerned in what got here earlier than, it should confront it head-on. “I’m not linked to the previous, however it weights heavy on the enterprise as we speak,” he mentioned. “You possibly can’t get away from it and the harm that was performed. The group which have are available in are new, and we’re eager to speak about it.”
Good mentioned what has occurred to subpostmasters is a motivating pressure for him and his colleagues in IT. “I don’t assume it’s attainable to look at the drama and documentary and never really feel extremely upset and careworn about what occurred to those subpostmasters,” he mentioned. “You possibly can’t assist being taken in and moved by it. For me and others that got here into the companies, this can be a actual driver to getting it mounted.”
Opening up the IT plans
Since Pc Weekly revealed the issues with Horizon and commenced investigating the scandal again in 2009, no Submit Workplace IT boss has spoken on to Pc Weekly. Feedback have been through press workplace statements, aside from a chilly name to former chief working officer Mike Younger in 2011, the place he denied any issues with Horizon.
Good mentioned he desires this to vary and plans transparency. “As a board and govt group, we now have agreed we wish issues to be totally different; we now have agreed we need to be open and clear internally, with the federal government, the press, the general public and finally the subpostmasters,” he mentioned.
Off the shelf vs in-house
Good and his group had been fast to behave on arrival on the Submit Workplace, placing a pause on work being performed on its deliberate Horizon alternative, the New Department IT (NBIT) undertaking.
The NBIT, a undertaking to construct an in-house software program platform to interchange Horizon, was working late and vastly over price range. Prices had elevated by £1bn and, as revealed by Pc Weekly in Could, a authorities report described the undertaking as “unachievable”.
On the pause to work being carried out, Good mentioned: “We felt it was the suitable factor to do, to pause that piece of labor and do a assessment of the strategy and the options to see if it was nonetheless the best way to go.”
Whether or not to proceed with the in-house construct or purchase a platform off-the-shelf is an main debate inside the Submit Workplace, after interim chairman Nigel Railton admitted that one of many errors made within the NBIT undertaking was the choice to construct in-house.
Pc Weekly has since been informed by a supply in Submit Workplace IT that the “writing is on the wall” for the in-house undertaking, with an off-the-shelf various being sought.
However Good mentioned a choice has not but been made. “This can be a resolution we’re not taking frivolously and we’re working with the federal government on that as properly. As the only shareholder funding this, they have to be snug,” he mentioned.
Good informed Pc Weekly a choice might be made earlier than the brand new monetary yr begins in April 2025. “We acquired permission from the federal government and the board to pause NBIT initially of October, so have solely been this in anger for just a few weeks,” he mentioned, agreeing {that a} resolution “can’t drag on”.
Good mentioned the Submit Workplace IT group is at present engaged on a five-year technique, and that he hopes they’ll have a transparent image by the beginning of the subsequent monetary yr. “That can sweep up what we’re going to do with Horizon, but additionally department expertise within the broader sense,” he mentioned.
Good, a former Mothercare and Camelot IT govt who additionally labored at Accenture, mentioned: “We’re a retail organisation, and retail is brutal, and we try to maintain up with everybody else.
“We’re working in opposition to Treasury spending opinions, processes and timelines as properly,” he added. “So, as we resolve what we need to do, we now have to feed into that course of to ensure we now have satisfactory funding.”
However he mentioned the Submit Workplace is now working collaboratively with the federal government, which “hasn’t all the time been the best way and hasn’t helped the Submit Workplace as an organisation”.
Work received’t go to waste
Good mentioned in-house developments which were working as a part of the NBIT undertaking won’t be wasted whichever method the organisation decides to go.
He mentioned the programme has been in pilot and delivering performance for the enterprise. “There may be functionality delivered out of that, that’s within the subpostmasters’ world as we speak, round issues like drop and accumulate,” mentioned Good.
“However on the coronary heart of that programme is a long-term alternative for Horizon, and that’s the piece being checked out when it comes to whether or not we’re heading in the right direction. So, it doesn’t all cease, quite a lot of stuff has been performed and different stuff continues on the sidelines, however the large central query round what’s the longer term for Horizon is the one we’re revisiting and reviewing proper now.”
The messy divorce
One other complication is the Submit Workplace’s reliance on Fujitsu. The Japanese IT large has offered help for the Horizon system since its introduction 1 / 4 of a century in the past.
Good mentioned the Submit Workplace can not at present finish the contract. “In an NBIT world, or another world, we’re not going to be able to retire and transfer away from Fujitsu simply but,” he mentioned. “That’s the fact of our state of affairs.”
The Submit Workplace has requested a four-year extension. “We now have been in dialog with Fujitsu concerning the particulars of an extension for a while,” mentioned Good.
“The rationale totally different timeframes have been quoted is as a result of that dialog has bounced round over the previous six months, with totally different choices requiring totally different extensions,” he added.
Pc Weekly first uncovered the scandal in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered attributable to 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).
