Fujitsu got another Post Office contract extension, The Register reported. Accenture takes over Horizon under a £410 million deal in 2027.
The current contract runs until March 2027.
The Post Office described the extension as short and time-limited. The Register's report of 10 November gives neither its length nor its value.
Accenture won the £410 million contract in May. It covers running Horizon and building the back end, the part users do not see, of the system that will replace it. The three parties agreed that Fujitsu hands over between 1 June and 1 September 2027. The final date is to be confirmed in March 2027.
The desk's reading: the Post Office is lengthening the old supplier's contract before the new supplier's start date is fixed. Anyone who has planned an exit from a long-running system knows that position. The extension is there to cover the transition.
Horizon is the accounting and till software used in Post Office branches. Around 736 subpostmasters, the people who run local branches, were prosecuted over its errors between 1999 and 2015, according to the report.
Post Office chief executive Neil Brocklehurst called ending the Fujitsu contract "a critical milestone". The report carries no comment from Fujitsu or Accenture.
Sources
Our file on Fujitsu
- 11 Oct
Fujitsu gave 100,000 staff Copilot. AI now handles about 75% of help desk triage.
- 20 Sept
IBM and Nvidia still plan quantum computers. NEC will not build one.
- 11 Sept
Fujitsu joined three UK contract frameworks during its own bidding ban.
For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which exit clauses your largest software and services contracts carry, and when each can be used.
- 2Ask what leaving would cost, in money and in months.
- 3Ask who reads the contract when a dispute starts, and whether they have read it before.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01
