Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham signed a partnership with the Japanese tech giant in the Post Office IT scandal just last month, it has emerged.
The Labour mayor brokered the ‘exploratory partnership’ deal with Fujitsu in December during a trade junket to Japan.
The trip saw him ride the country’s bullet train and enjoy a Noel Gallagher gig in Osaka, according to photos on his Twitter account.
The deal between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Fujitsu will look at ways it can harness the beleaguered firm’s ‘technical expertise’ for the region’s investment zone – a project set to provide £160 million of public funding to business schemes and create 32,000 jobs.
Mr Burnham and Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council, penned GMCA’s Fujitsu deal during a meeting with Vivek Mahajan, the firm’s chief technology officer, at its Tokyo HQ on December 8.
The trip saw Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham ride the country’s bullet train and enjoy a Noel Gallagher gig in Osaka, according to photos on his Twitter account
The deal between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Fujitsu will look at ways it can harness the beleaguered firm’s ‘technical expertise’ for the region’s investment zone – a project set to provide £160 million of public funding to business schemes and create 32,000 jobs
At the time, Mr Burnham praised the partnership as a ‘massive boost’ for the region’s investment zone.The deal – which has been reported by UK Tech News and Manchester Mill – came just weeks before the broadcast of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which reignited public anger over the scandal and heaped intense pressure on the Government to act.
Mr Burnham has said Post Office bosses treated people ‘appallingly’ and called for the Post Office to be stripped of its independent prosecution powers.
It is understood Fujitsu has yet to do any work as part of the partnership deal, which is not a contract and no public funds have been spent or earmarked by the GMCA for it. But the timing of the partnership could be seen by some as tone-deaf, as the firm remains under intense scrutiny over its role in the widest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
More than 700 sub-postmasters were privately prosecuted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015 after faults with Fujitsu’s Horizon system used in branches made it look like money was missing.
Mr Burnham and Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council, (pictured) penned GMCA’s Fujitsu deal during a meeting with Vivek Mahajan, the firm’s chief technology officer, at its Tokyo HQ on December 8.
In a statement, Mr Burnham said: ‘Fujitsu is a large, longstanding employer in Greater Manchester, and it is right that we work closely with them. Of course, the public inquiry is bringing new information into the public domain all the time and we will wait for its conclusions before taking any decisions.’ This comes as the Bank of England and HMRC are among 21 public bodies to be asked by Treasury Committee MPs to reveal any details of contracts handed to Fujitsu since 2019, when the High Court ruled Horizon-related prosecutions were unjust.
MPs – who have asked for a reply within two weeks – want to know the value of any contracts with Fujitsu, whether there were considerations of supplier risk and whether steps were made to ‘bar Fujitsu from bidding for contracts put out to tender’.
Since 2012, Fujitsu has won almost 200 public sector contracts worth a total of £6.8 billion, according to analysts Tussell.
Some 43 of those contracts are still in force, worth £3.6 billion, including the contract for the Post Office Horizon system, and several Government departments including the Home Office, the Foreign Office, Defra and the MoD.
Fujitsu did not respond to a request for comment.