What happened
The Horizon contract was one of the largest IT procurements in British history. The government\'s stated aims were modernisation of the Post Office network and efficiency in benefit payments — both reasonable goals.
What the Major government failed to do:
1. **Mandate independent software verification.** The contract did not require rigorous third-party testing of Horizon's accounting accuracy before it was used as evidence in prosecutions. This was not standard at the time — but for a system whose output would be used to accuse employees of theft, it should have been.
2. **Scrutinise the Post Office's prosecution powers.** The Post Office held a rare and largely unremarked legal status: it was a private body with the power to conduct its own criminal prosecutions without CPS oversight. Major\'s government did not review whether that power was appropriate for an organisation about to stake its prosecutions on a new and untested IT system.
3. **Include liability protections.** The contract gave Fujitsu significant protection from consequences if the software was wrong. The financial incentive to acknowledge defects was therefore low.
At the time of signing, this was a procurement decision that looked like routine government IT modernisation. Nobody in 1996 could have predicted that the system would produce 900 wrongful convictions. The severity rating here is low because the harm was not yet apparent — but the decisions made in this contract would shape everything that followed.