Fujitsu UK is rewarding staff for meeting a sales threshold, in further evidence that the company’s gesture to pause bidding for public sector contracts was a “hollow” one.
According to sources, all UK staff will receive a bonus this year after a sales target was reached, while headquarters in Japan is injecting another £80m into the UK business.
After the national outrage which followed ITV’s drama about the Post Office scandal, Fujitsu – which supplied the faulty software at the centre of the scandal – said it would pause bidding for lucrative government contracts.
But the bidding pause was described as a “hollow” gesture by peer and long-time campaigner for subpostmasters Kevan Jones, with Fujitsu continuing to cash in on government work, using workarounds.
The supplier’s Horizon retail and accounting software has been used by the Post Office since it was first introduced into branches in 2000. Subpostmasters were blamed and punished for unexplained account shortfalls which were caused by software errors.
Former subpostmaster Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly prosected and convicted of false accounting as a result of unexplained losses, said the bonus for Fujitsu staff “rubs salt into the wounds”.
“The non-existent bidding pause is an insult to the subpostmasters who are waiting for financial redress. Fujitsu could dip its hand into its deep pockets and help the government to get on and pay everyone before they die,” she said.
Fujitsu would not comment on the staff bonus.
The supplier’s promise to pause bidding only referred to new business and it has continued to bid for and win contracts with public sector bodies where it already has relationships, of which there are many.
For example, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) – described as a “cash cow” for Fujitsu – has continued to award large contracts. Fujitsu could land over half a billion pounds in contracts from HMRC alone this year as the public sector continues to reward the company, despite its role in the widest miscarriage of justice in UK history.
HMRC is the biggest source of Fujitsu’s UK government income, but there are hundreds of millions of pounds more contracts across the public sector, which Fujitsu has or is bidding for. Computer Weekly recently revealed a deal between HMRC and Fujitsu for hardware and cloud procurement, worth over £200m and known as North Star, where there was no competitive tender. HMRC is also extending its Computer Environment for Self-Assessment (CESA) contract worth just shy of £60m, where Fujitsu is the incumbent.
For the wider public sector, the figure is substantially bigger. For example, in December 2024, Fujitsu won a one-year extension to its Horizon contract with the government-owned Post Office, worth £40m. According to a source, there could also be up to a dozen more potential HMRC deals in the pipeline, as well as several Home Office contracts and deals with the Ministry of Defence, to name just a few.
Meanwhile the company’s headquarters in Japan is set to inject a further £80m into its UK business, which will not go towards compensating victims of the scandal.
A Fujitsu spokesperson said: “This investment strengthens [our] long-term financial health and competitiveness, and reflects Fujitsu’s continued commitment to the UK. This is part of a regular corporate review process covering all legal entities in the Fujitsu group. It is unrelated to our ongoing conversations with government regarding contribution to compensation.”
Fujitsu has not yet agreed how much of the billion-pound-plus cost of the scandal it will cover. After a meeting with Fujitsu in Tokyo last month, business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds said there was an agreement to begin talks on compensation. To date, Fujitsu has said it would wait until the public inquiry’s conclusion before committing to talks.
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters – including Hamilton – and the problems they suffered due to accounting software. It is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history (see below for timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal, since 2009).
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