Clickmen
Post Office expertise chief Chris Brocklesby is leaving after a yr because the venture to exchange the troubled Horizon IT system faces lengthy delays and rising prices.
Mr Brocklesby was employed on a one-year contract in August 2023 as “chief transformation officer”.
He leaves on 6 September, in keeping with a message despatched to Post Office workers by appearing chief government Owen Woodley.
The Post Office has been struggling to exchange the Horizon laptop system, which is equipped by Fujitsu.
A plan to construct new system operating on Amazon’s cloud computing system needed to be deserted in 2022, and the corporate has spent greater than £95m on extending the Horizon contract till subsequent April.
The Post Office mentioned the age and complexity of the Horizon system made switching over too pricey and technically difficult.
Reports recommend a alternative system could not absolutely operational till the top of the last decade.
Horizon started working in 1999, after a troubled improvement, by the corporate then often known as ICL.
But defective information produced by the system was used to wrongly convict tons of of sub-postmasters of theft and false accounting, in what grew to become often known as one of many largest miscarriages of justice in British historical past.
And inquiry into the scandal is ongoing.
The Post Office requested IBM to construct a alternative system to Horizon in 2015, however that venture was deserted.
A spokesperson from the corporate, which operates as a non-public enterprise however is wholly owned by the federal government, mentioned Mr Brocklesby had helped to remodel expertise within the agency, “providing a strong foundation for the work to replace Horizon and setting up the wider business for long-term success”.
The Post Office mentioned pilots for the brand new system had been at present working in 5 branches, and it has requested money from the Department for Business and Trade fund the venture to exchange it.
“Post Office and the Department for Business and Trade are working on this request and as and when an agreement is reached, we will inform our Postmasters,” the corporate added.
Mr Brocklesby will probably be changed by the previous Camelot transformation director Andy Nice.
