Post Office creates CTO role to support ‘extensive and complex’ plans

The Post Office is strengthening its tech leadership team by creating a new role amid the ongoing project to replace the Horizon system provided by Fujitsu.

This move comes at a crucial time for the organization as it navigates the transition away from the controversial IT system used in all Post Office branches. Subpostmasters were unfairly held responsible for discrepancies caused by errors in the Horizon software, which was implemented in 1999. Numerous individuals were wrongly convicted of crimes based on flawed evidence from the system, leading to what is now known as the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Paul Anastassi has been appointed as the interim chief technology officer (CTO) at the Post Office, joining from the gaming and entertainment company Rank Group. Acting CEO Neil Brocklehurst communicated to staff in an internal message: “…we are eager to move to our new Executive Operating Model swiftly to realize the benefits of the Strategic Review for Postmasters and drive broader changes as needed.”

He further stated: “With this objective in mind, we have chosen to fill the CTO position on an interim basis while we finalize the recruitment process for our permanent CTO, which is currently in progress internally and externally.”

Andy Nice, the chief transformation officer at the Post Office, informed Computer Weekly: “The introduction of the interim CTO role is aimed at enhancing our technology leadership capabilities in light of our extensive and complex plans in this area, allowing me to concentrate on implementing our strategic transformation plan for the business.”

Nice highlighted Anastassi’s “exceptional, pertinent experience in formulating and implementing technology strategies to facilitate business enhancement and expansion”.

Under the new leadership at the Post Office, including recently appointed Nice, the organization is undertaking a significant initiative to replace the contentious Horizon system from Fujitsu, which lies at the heart of the Post Office scandal.

Nice and his team wasted no time upon their arrival earlier this year, halting the progress on the planned Horizon replacement project, the New Branch IT (NBIT) project.

The NBIT project, aimed at developing an in-house software platform to replace Horizon, was behind schedule and significantly over budget. Costs had escalated by £1 billion, and as disclosed by Computer Weekly in May, a government report characterized the project as “unattainable”.

There is currently ongoing deliberation at the Post Office regarding the project’s future direction, with suggestions that the organization might acquire the Horizon system from Fujitsu and integrate it with in-house developed and commercially available software.

The Post Office scandal was initially brought to light by Computer Weekly in 2009, shedding light on the experiences of seven subpostmasters and the challenges they faced due to the accounting software (refer to the timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal below).