The Post Office has paused its project to move all Horizon data from Fujitsu systems to its own as the Metropolitan Police were “not keen” to progress until they were satisfied with the approach.
Data from the controversial Horizon system played a key role in the Post Office Horizon scandal, which saw thousands of subpostmasters wrongly blamed for accounting shortfalls, with about 1,000 wrongly prosecuted.
In November, Computer Weekly revealed details of the Post Office’s plan to migrate legacy data from Fujitsu’s Horizon system to a Post Office cloud.
A pause has been put in place because the Metropolitan Police were “not keen” for the migration to progress “until they were clear and satisfied regarding our approach”, said Andy Nice, chief transformation officer at the Post Office.
Over the past 25 years, data from Horizon was requested by the Post Office via audit record queries (ARQs). This data could have proved the subpostmasters were not to blame for unexplained shortfalls in their branches, but the Post Office was reluctant to use it because it had a limit on how many requests it could make for free before Fujitsu charged it.
Word of the plan originally emerged during evidence at the Post Office scandal public inquiry from Fujitsu boss Paul Patterson last week. He told the inquiry that Horizon data, including all historical data, would be inside the Post Office’s house by February. “They’ll have all the data that is required,” he said.
In November, Nice said the plan was to start testing after Christmas and begin the migration of data early this year. But Nice told Computer Weekly the data migration work has been paused due to ongoing discussions with the Metropolitan Police. This, he said, is to ensure the force is “comfortable with the migration process and that it doesn’t impact its ongoing investigations”.
He said the Post Office is working closely with Fujitsu to ensure they manage any operational risks that this delay entails.
“The Met Police rely on Horizon data for some of their investigations (e.g. robberies from Post Offices) so were concerned about the potential loss of this data should we encounter any issues with the data migration project,” said Nice.
“Both the Post Office and Fujitsu are working closely with the Metropolitan Police to assure them on this matter, but this is taking time, and they were not keen for us to progress with the work until they were clear and satisfied regarding our approach. This exercise is ongoing, so we have paused the data migration work in the meantime.”
In November, Nice also said the migration means the Post Office will no longer be reliant on Fujitsu for the provision of data via the ARQ process and opens up the possibility of giving subpostmasters more direct access to their branch audit data.
Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
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