Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many formal complaints from Post Office sub-postmasters about the Horizon software that was updated in 2017 (1) have been made, and (2) still need to be resolved, about discrepancies and cash shortfalls in individual post offices; and in what towns and cities these complaints were made.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
This is an operational matter for Post Office Limited. Post Office however continues to make improvements to the system and will be moving away from Horizon to a new cloud-based IT system. Government recently announced that it is providing £103 million to help with the development of the replacement for the Horizon IT system and to ensure Horizon is maintained while that replacement is rolled out.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Post Office Horizon software system that was updated in 2017 has any issues with discrepancies of cash shortfalls in individual Post Offices; and if so, in how many Post Offices such problems have occurred.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
There have been several versions of Horizon since its introduction in 1999 and the current version of the system, introduced from 2017, was found in the Group Litigation to be robust, relative to comparable systems. Post Office continue to make improvements to the system and will be moving away from Horizon to a new IT system. The Government is providing funding to support this programme.