Post Office: Signing of Horizon replacement deal set back a further three weeks

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https://www.publictechnology.net/2026/0 ... ree-weeks/

The standstill period of 10 days will now reach a total of three months, having been extended six separate times as challenges to the choice of supplier seem to persist
The formal commencement of the Post Office’s £170m deal for a system to replace Horizon will now be subject to even lengthier delay of three further weeks.

Since the government-owned company its intention to award the deal to software provider OneView Commerce on 21 May the formal standstill period has been extended six times. This period, which must last a minimum of 10 days, exists to enable competing bidders to formally challenge or otherwise query procurement decisions.

After the standstill was extended three times, the Post Office formally reassessed the two bids for the Horizon-replacement deal: from OneView Commerce and rival software provider Escher.

Having completed this exercise – and reaffirmed the original choice of supplier – the period has been elongated three further times.

The latest of these extensions, confirmed in commercial documents published yesterday, is the longest yet – with the earliest date that a contract can be signed being pushed back from 30 July to 22 August.

This means that, by the time the contract comes into effect, more than three months will have passed since the chosen supplier was first announced.

The Post Office has previously indicated that it remains unable to comment while the standstill period is ongoing, and Escher is yet to respond to enquiries from PublicTechnology.

The planned contract is a 10-year engagement valued at £169.2m for s supplier to deliver commercial off-the-shelf product that can “meet the authority’s specific requirements with minimal bespoke customisations”, according to the award notice. This is in stark contrast to the troubled Horizon system which was developed specifically for the Post Office by Fujitsu – which remains under contract to support the platform until March 2027. The Japanese tech giant was most recently retained on a one-year extension, valued at almost £50m.

Since 1999, the government-owned company has spent about £2.5bn with Fujitsu on Horizon-related deals. The technology has been responsible for almost 1,000 wrongful convictions, and 13 deaths by suicide have been attributed to the hardships caused by the platform’s accounting errors.

The new retail system that will serve as its replacement is intended “to transform Post Office Limited’s retail technology platform to meet evolving business, operational, and customer requirements”, the award notice added.

Alongside the new software firm, the Post Office has also appointed Accenture to a £322.8m five-year agreement to “take over the existing Horizon Services on a ‘walk in, take over’ basis”. This deal came into effect as scheduled on 3 June, following the conclusion of the normal 10-day standstill period. Accenture won the contract having beaten off competition from one other bidder: IBM.