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An independent investigation into the integrity of the present model of the controversial Post Office Horizon device and its skill to name discrepancies will be accomplished within the autumn.

The controversial device, which is at the centre of the Post Office scandal, will be frail in branches for one other eight years whereas an off-the-shelf different is sought.

The third-birthday celebration overview of the Fujitsu-supplied Horizon device, which has been in exhaust in branches since 1999, changed into as soon as revealed in November 2024 for the length of a Post Office scandal public inquiry hearing. When giving proof, Lorna Gratton, the civil servant who sits as a non-govt director of the Post Office on behalf of the authorities, acknowledged there had been a discussion over the present reliability of the Horizon device.

Computer Weekly revealed the overview changed into as soon as being implemented by investigation agency Kroll.

The Post Office acknowledged the investigation involves an summary of the integrity of the recordsdata in Horizon and a overview of the Post Office’s discrepancy identification and resolution direction of. It acknowledged it’s a response to feedback from subpostmasters, collectively with proof heard at the public inquiry.

The Horizon device is at the centre of the widest miscarriage of justice in UK historical previous. Hundreds of subpostmasters were blamed for accounting discrepancies attributable to computer errors, with many overlaying phantom shortfalls by repaying huge sums of cash to the Post Office. Many subpostmasters were bankrupted, assign out of alternate and wrongly convicted of monetary crimes.

A September 2024 narrative by the public inquiry raised concerns about the present model of the controversial device. It stumbled on that 57% of current subpostmasters hang skilled unexplained shortfalls.

Of those surveyed, almost all 92% had encountered a assert with the Horizon IT device within the 300 and sixty five days sooner than the gaze, with shroud shroud freezes and misplaced connectivity being the most overall complications. 

Three-quarters acknowledged they hang got frail their very own department cash to quilt discrepancies or resolved the problem themselves.

At some stage in a public inquiry hearing closing 300 and sixty five days, Fujitsu’s European boss, Paul Patterson, admitted there are bugs and errors within the Horizon device, but acknowledged blaming the appliance for all considerations is the tip outcomes of too “slender” a definition of Horizon. He acknowledged shroud shroud freezes will be attributable to more than one issues, and connectivity is supplied by other suppliers.

He also acknowledged systems that join to Horizon, equivalent to POLSAP, the Post Office’s SAP platform, must even be examined when considerations occur.

The device is determined to live in branches for years yet to come. Per a public sector procurement scrutinize, the Post Office will within the discontinuance replace the controversial Horizon device with an off-the-shelf different, but this would possibly maybe no longer be full till 2033.

Fujitsu’s involvement, on the opposite hand, will discontinuance subsequent 300 and sixty five days, with the Post Office hunting for a brand current provider to grab over Horizon’s operation whereas it finds a replacement device. In total, this will doubtless price taxpayers about £500m.

The authorities has previously paid out £1bn in compensation to those littered with the scandal.

One after the other, the Post Office acknowledged there could be rarely any update on its project to migrate Horizon recordsdata from Fujitsu infrastructure to its own. The migration changed into as soon as paused on demand of of the Metropolitan Police due to its “concerns”.

Computer Weekly first uncovered the scandal in 2009, revealing the reports of seven subpostmasters and the complications they suffered as a result of Horizon accounting device, which ended in the most traditional miscarriage of justice in British historical previous (witness under timeline of Computer Weekly articles).