Fujitsu will begin handing over its Post Office operation to Accenture in the summer, with one more contract extension before its autumn exit.
The final day for Fujitsu is 1 September 2027 at the latest, according to the Post Office, which will require a six-month extension to the current £40m 12-month deal that ends in March. The final hard date, which will end a 30-year relationship, will be announced then.
As revealed by Computer Weekly last month, an extension of the current deal was on the cards. This is now confirmed.
“A short, time-limited contract extension has also been agreed to facilitate the transition process,” said the Post Office.
In May, Accenture won a £322.8m contract to run Horizon, while the electronic point of sale (EPOS) system from OneView Commerce was chosen in a £169m deal.
There have been delays. As revealed by Computer Weekly, Escher threatened legal action after its bid to win the EPOS replacement contract failed. The EPOS contract was agreed with OneView in May, and was originally set to be formally signed off at the beginning of June, but it was delayed six times due to extensions to the standoff period.
Amid the Escher challenge, on 7 August, the Post Office created a new contract and awarded it directly to the supplier. This contract is for Escher’s proprietary Product Journey Engine (PJE). Taxpayers will pay £14m in its first year for development and configuration. Licensing and support for later years will be separately procured.
Read more: Post Office Horizon scandal explained: Everything you need to know
On the Fujitsu exit deadline, Post Office CEO Neil Brocklehurst said: “Ending our contract with Fujitsu is a critical milestone in Post Office’s transformation, and today’s agreement secures the transition away from Fujitsu and over to Accenture safely and responsibly to achieve our target of summer 2027.
“In addition to ending our contract with Fujitsu, we are also working at pace with our leading technology suppliers, Accenture, OneView Commerce and Escher, to build a modern, resilient platform able to make everyday life easier for customers and postmasters for years to come,” he said.
Subpostmaster and Post Office non-executive director Sara Barlow said: “For me, appointing the new suppliers felt like a genuine milestone. It represented an opportunity to learn from the past while building something better for the future. There is still a lot of work ahead, but it is encouraging to see the focus on getting this right.”
Read more: Fujitsu’s role in the Post Office scandal: Everything you need to know
The Horizon replacement project was first planned almost exactly seven years ago, after the Post Office admitted defeat in the Alan Bates and Others versus Post Office group litigation, when it was proved Horizon errors caused the account shortfalls that subpostmasters were blamed and punished for. But nothing really moved, and it was only after the ITV dramatisation of the Post Office scandal in January 2024, amid public outrage, that things started to happen.
This culminated in the £1.8bn New Branch IT project, but this ran into trouble and was eventually axed in May 2024, and was replaced by the current project.
There have been multiple Fujitsu extensions worth nearly £200m since 2019, but the next will be the last.
Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, with the stories of seven subpostmasters.
