ICL Pathway (Fujitsu) Curiosity

[John Upham]

A +ten year IT career in the financial sector leaves me curious about the precise nature of the alleged shortcomings in the Horizon system developed by ICL Pathway (referred to in the media as Fujitsu).

Is it known if the "shortcomings" were in
1. The specification for the system?
2. The coding of the system?
3. The implementation of the system?
4. The trialling and / or roll-out of the system?
5. The training of the end users?
6. Some other possibilities?

Did the Post Office fail to report report issues to ICL / Fujitsu for trouble shooting?
Did the bugs get fixed in the end?

This whole sorry saga leaves an appallingly bad taste in the mouth.

I have asked Computer Weekly for answers but may never get them as they themselves may not know.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

What is the point of this thread, John? There is a public inquiry (which started long before the recent TV drama-documentary) and you seem to be implying something here that isn't going to really help (unless you can think of examples of similar systems where the outcome was handled better?).

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

I must admit I wondered the same thing and found this article which helped explained things a bit:
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/w ... o-go-live/

[Angus French]

I have asked Computer Weekly for answers but may never get them as they themselves may not know.

I thought this piece was interesting.

Based on what's stated, I wonder whether there may also not have been a reconciliation process to check reported receipts to and payments from each Post Office counter against bank (and credit card) account deposits and withdrawals (I've coded such in a similar scenario)?

Yes, you also wonder about user acceptance testing, piloting and staged rollouts (which may discover issues before the system is implemented across the whole estate).

A +ten year IT career in the financial sector leaves me curious about the precise nature of the alleged shortcomings in the Horizon system developed by ICL Pathway (referred to in the media as Fujitsu).

Er, I worked for a little more than ten years for ICL / Fujitsu Services as a Software and Solution Developer and was there when Horizon went live - or just after. I don't recall hearing about problems with the system though. In my time ICL / Fujitsu Services specialised in providing IT infrastructure (hardware and networks) but not so much in software systems (in my recollection then tended to deploy and adapt software developed by others).

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I don't recall hearing about problems with the system though."

They would probably keep quiet. My former employers hit the headlines when some idiot fouled up a DNA test, and there was no internal discussion at all. I got the full story from a contact outside the company...

[Mike Gunn]

I think a poor system specification/ software design is too blame. A minimum requirement of such a system should be that the users can print out a list of all transactions for any day to see where errors have occurred and check the balance by hand. From what we have heard they were not able to do that.

[John Upham]

I am grateful to Tony Williams who, in another place, provided the following helpful URL:

https://www.jfsa.org.uk/resources.html

Worth studying I think you will agree.

[John Upham]

Following that Richard James drew my attention to

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-l ... e-67921974

[NickFaulks]

Following that Richard James drew my attention to

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-l ... e-67921974

Well yes, but the fact is that anyone who hasn't known all about this for at least the past ten years must have been living under a rock.

[Kevin Thurlow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSThzRcgKz0

discusses the Court views of the behaviour by Post Office/Fujitsu, including some technical details.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Following that Richard James drew my attention to

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-l ... e-67921974

Well yes, but the fact is that anyone who hasn't known all about this for at least the past ten years must have been living under a rock.

This is what puzzled me about John's initial post, and the strange comment about Computer Weekly. If you follow the link to the CW article Angus provided, there are 160 CW articles on the topic up to February 2021 and presumably many more articles since then. It is almost inconceivable that anyone working in finance-related IT would not be familiar with this case.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Computer Weekly covered the computer errors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZP0Ffw6ky0

[John Upham]

One thing that occurred to me on the way from a school chess club today is that many years ago the General Post Office may well have used its superb laboratory and people at Dollis Hill and kept work in-house. Sadly, the days of solving problems in house are long gone.

One of the root causes of many failures as this is outsourcing when the resources in-house do not exist.

Outsourcing by its very nature can lead to communication errors of the nail and the horseshoe type.

Outsourcing does mean that the blame for failure can be distributed and obfuscated.

[Matt Mackenzie]

And for several years outsourcing was regarded almost uncritically as a wholly positive good by all our major political parties.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

One thing that occurred to me on the way from a school chess club today is that many years ago the General Post Office may well have used its superb laboratory and people at Dollis Hill and kept work in-house. Sadly, the days of solving problems in house are long gone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Offi ... ch_Station

Some very interesting history there.

Later, this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adastral_Park