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The Post Office has agreed to extend its deal to use the controversial Horizon IT system for another year.<\/p>\n
It is paying a further \u00a341m to the Japanese-owned company Fujitsu to use Horizon until March 2027.<\/p>\n
The accounting system has been at the centre of the Post Office scandal in which more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after faulty Horizon software made it look like money was missing from their branch accounts.<\/p>\n
A Post Office spokesperson said it was “committed to moving away from Fujitsu and off the Horizon system\u202fas soon as possible”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“We are bringing in a different supplier to take over Horizon whilst a new system is developed, and this process is well under way,” they added. <\/p>\n
“We expect to award a contract for a new supplier to manage Horizon by July 2026, according to current timelines.”<\/p>\n
Sources have told the BBC the contract could be extended until 2028 while the new supplier takes over the running of Horizon, which is used by sub-postmasters at branches across the UK.<\/p>\n
But the replacement of Horizon is still a long way off.<\/p>\n
The Post Office had been working on a project called NBIT to build a new in-house alternative, but there were growing concerns about its soaring costs and complexity.<\/p>\n
NBIT was ditched shortly after new Post Office chair Nigel Railton launched his turnaround plan for the business in November 2024.<\/p>\n
Post Office bosses have shifted to buying software from external suppliers and a procurement process for this has begun.<\/p>\n
A government spokesperson said: “We are working as quickly as possible to ensure the Post Office has the technology it needs, including replacing Horizon, as a vital part of the company’s wider transformation.<\/p>\n
“The fact they still use the Horizon system indicates past under-investment, which can’t be rectified overnight, so we need to ensure postmasters have the tools they need to continue serving their customers in the interim.”<\/p>\n
Fujitsu executives have apologised for the company’s role in the scandal, admitting that Horizon had bugs errors and defects from the start.<\/p>\n
The boss of its European arm, Paul Patterson, has acknowledged that Fujitsu had a “moral obligation” to contribute financially but no timeline or figure has so far been set.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n