Il contratto IT di Post Office Horizon è stato prorogato di un altro anno

Absolutely disgusting.

The government should be getting involved here.

There should be a major criminal case against Fujitsu for their complicity in the damage caused to the postmasters and sub-postmasters.

They should be providing this service free of charge as one of many ways of recompense.

Engaging in criminal activity as part of your contracted services should carry significant penalties.

No doubt though our government will be keen to be weak, spineless and ever servicing to their corporate overlords.

They and the government have had years to think about this. There could have been discussions going on with new companies about how to design and pay for a new system.

A friend is the technical manager for a company that provides similar systems for transportation networks (like the ticketing machines for bus companies and the Tube). The customers are nearly always governments or private–public partnerships.

I’m always horrified by the tales of chaos. The problem is that very few companies do this sort of work and bidding wars mean the budgets are never sufficient. The coders and other technical people are very low in the food chain, and managers/executives don’t listen to their advice.

Anyway, none of this will be news to anyone who has been following the Post Office scandal and that includes the government. What I’m saying is that the way to avoid a new scandal isn’t rocket science. The secret ingredient is sufficient funding and involvement of experts. Given the public pressure on Post Office, things could be done correctly. But unless there are things going on behind the scenes, it seems like there’s little will from the government to move things along.