Will Fujitsu Be Held To Account Over The Po Scandal?

[youngmafbog]

Althought the customer (PO) should be ultimately responsible shouldnt Fujitsu also be?  It appears they kne about issues and even were able to amend live data.

And on top of that they have other lucrative Government contracts.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12944819/Fujitsu-horizon-post-office-scandal-uk-criminal-records-system.html

[ToraToraTora]

Well at least for the shoddy workmanship, sadly the package was actually written by ICL! They are not responsible for the cover up and the appalling treatment of the Postmasters but they should have spoke up when it became clear what the PO were doing.

[Old_Geezer]

All software can contain bugs, some difficult to identify, which is why bespoke installations or new versions in general, get beta tested on the poor ol' customer.

 

I think the company are as much at fault as the PO (who clearly didn't investigate upwards but concentrated on punching with force downwards). That stated, they are not responsible for the PO's actions when an issue was found. However, being advised of a problem they seem to have done little to spot the cause.

 

It's probably up to the courts to decide the blame ratio for each action or inaction.

[youngmafbog]

The History of ICL/Fujitsu and Horizon:

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366565720/How-Fujitsu-became-a-central-part-of-the-Post-Office-scandal

[youngmafbog]

// get beta tested on the poor ol' customer.//

I think you will find it was piloted and errors were found but they carried on regardless.

[ToraToraTora]

//....The senior developer, who worked on the project between 1998 and 2000, said, “Everybody in the building by the time I got there knew [Horizon] was a bag of ***. It had gone through the test labs God knows how many times, and the testers were raising bugs by the thousand.”

He said Horizon should “never have seen the light of day” and that bosses at supplier Fujitsu allowed it to be rolled out into the Post Office network despite being told it did not function correctly and could not be fixed// - enough said!

[retrocop]

 

The chief architect of the software for Horizon wishes to be given immunity from prosecution if he is to appear at the enquiry. Apparently,the P.O. had been told by Fujitsu that they could access the terminals of all the Postmasters/mistresses Horizon terminals in 2012.

 

 

tps://www.https://uk.yahoo.com/news/horizon-tech-expert-helped-convict-215934637.html

[ToraToraTora]

TBF the design was probably ok. It was then probably thrown together with poor programming practices and voila! It's like a recipe, a decent cook will produce the final dish at least edible, a clueless cowboy won't. Sadly they seem to have gone with the latter and then force fed the resultant dish to the final users.

[andy-hughes]

With these set-ups, by the time they find errors that makevthe software unworkable, they have spent so much money, that it's easier to simply carry on, and save face, and careers, rather than admit that it's not suitable, and the money has been wasted, which tends to result in managers losing their jobs.

As for Fujistu being held accountable, there is talk of using the Japanese culture of 'shame' to corral them into court and doing the right thing.

But realisitically, they are too big and too far away to have anything to fear from the UK, morally, or legally.

They will simply sit tight until it all goes away - they have that in common with the wretched woman who was rewarded for overseeing this shambles.

[ToraToraTora]

"As for Fujistu being held accountable, there is talk of using the Japanese culture of 'shame' to corral them into court and doing the right thing." - They should use the Japanese tradition of Ishikozume!

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // "As for Fujistu being held accountable, there is talk of using the Japanese culture of 'shame' to corral them into court and doing the right thing." - They should use the Japanese tradition of Ishikozume! //

Your hysterical hyperbole is not addressing the facts of the issue.

Fujitsu designed a system, which was full of bugs, as systems are.

It is not their fault that their customer decided to press ahead with implementation instead of spending the time and money needed to get the bugs sorted, which Fujitsu would no doubt have done as part of their contract.

That I imagine will be their defence, and it's very difficult to argue against it - epsecially if they have evidence that the told the PO that the system was unworkable in its present form and the PO went ahead with implentation anyway.

That means that fault lies fairly and squarely with the PO, who should be in court ASAP.

[ToraToraTora]

Have a day off Andy, it was meant to be a TIC comment!

 

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // Have a day off Andy, it was meant to be a TIC comment! //

You might think that reference to a method of execution where someone is buried up to their waist and them stoned to death is 'humourous', I disagree. 

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // Have a day off Andy, it was meant to be a TIC comment! //

That aside, I am not sure that Fujistu actually bear any responsibiity.

If I buy a car, and the garage tell me it needs to have its brakes fixed before I take it out, and they suggest that they have access to do the work, and I ignore them and drive it, and kill someone, I doubt the court will be prosecuting the garage.

[ToraToraTora]

I'm not arguing with any of that Andy, you seem to be trying to pick a fight.

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // I'm not arguing with any of that Andy, you seem to be trying to pick a fight. //

Not at all - I am simply reiterating the thrust of my argument - that I believe Fujitsu are not actually to blame in this scandal, and they will understandably defend themselves from any accusations that the fault is theirs.

[youngmafbog]

//That aside, I am not sure that Fujistu actually bear any responsibiity.//

If you have knowingly delivered something that doesnt work and others are going to jail for it then I think they do.  Regardless of the delivery they could have appeared for the defence.  They didnt.

[THECORBYLOON]

ANDY, did Fujitsu not claim their staff had no direct access to the Post Office terminals?

[Ellipsis]

Looking on it from the outside, it's impossible to know where the problems were with Post Office or Fujitsu.

What I would say is that the Sub-postmasters' issues are with the Post Office - the Post Office is accountable for that. Anything done wrong between the Post Office and Fujitsu (and the Government) is a separate matter and something they need to sort out between themselves, probably in court. 

[Ellipsis]

whether* not where

[andy-hughes]

YMB - // If you have knowingly delivered something that doesnt work and others are going to jail for it then I think they do. // 

They didn't 'knowingly deliver something that doesn't work.

When you design a massive complex piece of software, you accept that there are bugs in it, because they are unavoidable.

What you do is, deliver it to the customer, ask them to test it, and report back what bugs they have found.

You fix those, send it back again, and so on, until the softwware works, and is then signed off by the customer and implemented.

It appears that the Post Office accepted an early version of the software, decided that sending it back for big erradication was too expensive and / or time consuming, so they implemeted it with the bugs still in it, and we all know what that led to.

So in my view, the responsibility lies entirely with the PO for not getting the software into a suitable state for implemenation, and then compunding that error by blaming the resultant software glitches on the poor Subpostmasters, accusing them of fraud, instead of simply admitting that their software had not been checked and put into a proper state for roll-out.

But as I said earlier, that would mean managers being blamed and fired, so they kept quiet, shifted the blame, and refused all the basic logic of suggesting that it was a software issue, rather than hundreds of previously innocent people suddenly deciding en masse and overnight, to rob their employers, by falsifying returns that would be picked up instantly, and expose them to accusations of fraud and theft on a large scale.

And here we are ...