Bosses at Fujitsu have collected about £37m in pay, bonuses and compensation for lack of workplace because the know-how firm gained the contract to provide the software program on the coronary heart of the Put up Workplace Horizon scandal, it has emerged.
Accounts going again 25 years reveal the seven-figure sums paid out to executives of the UK division of the Japanese-owned know-how firm, whilst greater than 900 folks had been prosecuted because of flaws within the system their firm equipped.
Fujitsu, which is forecast to have earned £1.5bn from the Horizon contract by the point of its expiry in 2025, has formally apologised for its position within the wrongful prosecution of Put up Workplace owner-operators, referred to as sub-postmasters and postmistresses.
The Tokyo-based firm has additionally promised to contribute to compensation, though it has but to say how a lot it expects to pay. Nonetheless a report by the Treasury choose committee, printed this weekend, discovered that it gained no less than £1.4bn of public sector contracts after a courtroom had dominated that Horizon was riddled with “bugs”.
Evaluation by the BBC, printed on Sunday, has turned the highlight on seven senior executives who presided over the contract. It discovered that they obtained £26m in pay and bonuses in the course of the lifetime of the Horizon contract, in addition to £11m in compensation for lack of workplace.
Alan Bates, the previous submit workplace operator who has develop into the face of the victims’ marketing campaign after an ITV drama centred on him, informed the BBC that whereas bosses earned enormous salaries, he and others like him had been struggling to get by.
“We’re nonetheless the skint little folks for the time being,” he stated. “It’s not simply Fujitsu, it’s additionally the Put up Workplace and senior executives who had been on bonuses twice the dimensions of their salaries and that’s for a state-owned company.”
The executives named by the BBC are Keith Todd, who was in cost at Fujitsu on the genesis of the Horizon system within the late Nineties, and his successors Richard Christou, David Courtley and Roger Gilbert.
Additionally they embrace the present Fujitsu UK & Eire boss, Paul Patterson, and his predecessor, Duncan Tait.
The Guardian revealed final month that Tait, who informed the ex-Put up Workplace boss Paula Vennells that the Horizon system was as secure as Fort Knox, was handed £2.6m for lack of workplace after standing down in 2019.
In December that 12 months, a excessive courtroom ruling decided that “bugs, errors and defects” in Horizon may trigger shortfalls in Put up Workplace department accounts, giving the looks of theft or fraud by harmless submit workplace operators.
It emerged this weekend that Fujitsu gained £1.4bn in authorities contracts after that ruling from Treasury-linked our bodies alone.
The Treasury choose committee discovered that the corporate held £3.4bn of contracts with the Treasury, HM Income and Customs, the Financial institution of England and the Monetary Conduct Authority, each earlier than and after the 2019 ruling.
after e-newsletter promotion
Fujitsu has stated it’ll not bid for public sector contracts until requested to whereas a statutory inquiry within the scandal, led by Sir Wyn Williams, continues.
Christou, Courtley, Anwen Owen, Patterson and Todd declined to touch upon their pay to the BBC. Gilbert stated final week he was “shocked” by the Put up Workplace’s pursuit of submit workplace operators.
Tait stated: “I’m appalled by the cruel remedy of the sub-postmasters and postmistresses and need to do all I can to assist the inquiry.
“This has been a horrible miscarriage of justice and, like others at Fujitsu, I’m sorry for the harm that has been finished to the sub-postmasters and postmistresses’ lives and any position that Fujitsu performed in that.”
Fujitsu has repeatedly declined to touch upon pay however stated it “regards this matter with the utmost seriousness and gives its deepest apologies to the sub-postmasters and their households.
“Primarily based on the findings of the inquiry, we may also be working with the UK authorities on the suitable actions, together with contribution to compensation. The Fujitsu group hopes for a swift decision that ensures a simply final result for the victims.”