Post Office confirms end of in-house NBIT system, £410M procurement plan to go ahead

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Post Office confirms end of in-house NBIT system, £410M procurement plan to go ahead

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• Post Office to source external software and service providers to replace Horizon
• Fujitsu’s Horizon gets a one-year extension due to the delays
• Horizon/NBIT replacements to cost £492 million

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The Post Office is abandoning its in-house effort to replace the controversial Horizon system with the previously-announced New Branch IT (NBIT) system, instead turning to external suppliers for a suitable option.

As part of the new procurement plan, worth £492 million, the Post Office is seeking a replacement service provider for £322.8 million and a software provider, which it will award a £169.2 million contract to.

The announcement, posted to the

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, comes around four years after the Post Office first revealed plans for NBIT after widespread controversy relating to its outgoing system, which just received an extension.

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Introduced in 1999 and developed by ICL and Fujitsu, the Horizon system resulted in a miscarriage of justice on a huge scale, with faulty accounting software leading to the false prosecutions of hundreds of subpostmasters. More than 60 people had died before getting justice, and a public inquiry is still ongoing.

Fujitsu has been awarded contracts totalling £2.44 billion since 1999, and with the Post Office confirming that NBIT would not arrive by March 2025, Fujitsu was given a further year to continue providing the Post Office with its Horizon software.

The first of two lots centers around the migration from datacenters to the cloud, including the introduction of a cloud-native platform with enhanced reporting and a zero-trust security architecture. It’s on offer as a five-year contract, from June 2026 to June 2031, and will be worth £322.8 million. Two one-year extensions could take this to June 2033 if the Post Office deems it necessary to “ensure key transformations and transitions have concluded.”

The second lot, a longer 12-year contract worth £169.2 million, will see a third party provide a modular, cloud-hosting retail electronic POS platform, including self-service, pick-up/drop-off and mobile POS. Two optional one-year extensions are also available.

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A Post Office spokesperson said (via

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): “We are committed to moving away from Fujitsu and off the Horizon system and we have a plan in place to introduce a new IT system in stages for postmasters and strategic partners. We will continue to ensure we comply with public procurement regulations as we transform our technology.”

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