AGM followed by The Post Office Horizon Scandal – An Update and Analysis

The Annual General Meeting of the Edinburgh branch of the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
begins at 18:15 on Wednesday 2 October 2024. The meeting will be held at Computershare
Limited, Edinburgh House, 4 North Saint Andrew Street, Edinburgh EH2 1HJ.

Synopsis

The Post Office and Fujitsu claimed that the Horizon system was as good as perfect. However, Fujitsu managers have now told the Post Office Inquiry that they didn’t know the system would have to be good enough to produce reliable criminal evidence. That raises a series of questions, and none of the answers reflect well on Fujitsu or the Post Office.

A crucial lesson for everyone working in IT is that both the Post Office and Fujitsu were vague about the purposes of the system and what “reliable” meant. This confusion and complacency was ruthlessly exposed in the Horizon Issues court case and the public inquiry.

The Post Office and Fujitsu were living in a dream world in which they refused to learn what the system was really like, and how it worked for its users. This had tragic consequences for hundreds of subpostmasters who were convicted, and even jailed, on unreliable evidence. The Post Office and Fujitsu didn’t know what they were doing.

About the speaker

James Christie’s IT experience goes back 40 years. He has worked as a system developer, designer and team leader, business analyst, IT auditor, project manager, test manager and consultant, and information security manager. This has been mostly in financial services and much of it on large scale IT outsourcing contracts. Over the last four years he has been heavily involved in pro bono work linked to the Post Office scandal. He has written legal articles, campaigned for a change in the law, and briefed politicians and lawyers. His range of experience has proved valuable in understanding what happened.