Lessons learned from Post Office’s Horizon IT scandal

Harish Rao, Technology Director at Crown Workforce Management, provides an opinion on the management lessons learned from the Post Office’s software deployment disaster

HR leaders outsourcing their workforce management should be taking urgent note of the implications of the Horizon IT scandal. Businesses must review the delegation of control concerning their data with service providers.

Opinion on the Horizon IT scandal

On the face of it, the Horizon IT scandal will rightly be remembered as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history, but lurking underneath the life-changing damage is a warning sign for every business that has vast and complex software deployments.

With hundreds of branches across the UK, the Post Office understandably sought a third party to supply accounting software and services. The issues that emerged from the failures within this arrangement have been well-documented over recent months.

Many have blamed faulty software for this, but that would be an oversimplification. The reality is that any significant body of software will have latent problems, which could surface when the software is operated on a large scale with a complex network of computers and systems. Software by itself cannot anticipate all possible problem scenarios.

That’s why robust support services must be employed to deal promptly with problems that emerge in systems, combined with recording and verifying changes to those systems.

All access and changes to sensitive data must be logged in the systems and regularly verified by manual or automated auditing to avoid a repeat of discrepancies not being properly investigated.

Why is this significant to the HR sector?

The working setup between the Post Office and Fujitsu is similar to the working arrangement between a business and service supplier for assistance with managing a workforce.

Therefore, if specific measures aren’t implemented, new damage and scandal could be at risk of emerging – whether that is data leaks or inaccurate data recording.

It wasn’t long ago that a service supplier to a well-known supermarket, among others, was subject to a ransomware attack which compromised thousands of employees’ details, and as a result, that service supplier may have had to undergo a complete rebrand to survive.

The Horizon IT scandal has, in a way, reminded HR leaders that they need to routinely monitor the trust they have in their service supplier when it comes to handling employee data.

By this, I mean conducting regular audits with their supplier and asking questions about what data the supplier can see, who has access to it, and how it is protected.

At Crown, we focus on providing the infrastructure and systems businesses need to solve their complex work issues – such as working out the most cost-efficient rotas – so we do not require access to customer data or personal information.

It is crucial for HR leaders to understand from their suppliers how they monitor the staff who have access to their systems to ensure there is no inappropriate use of the system or inaccurate advice being delivered.

It isn’t just about data security either. It is very feasible, for example, that a workforce management system could have the potential to inaccurately record an employee’s clocking in and out time, which, if it was to be believed, could lead to unfair disciplinary action for that employee.

This is why it’s essential to have an internal discrepancy procedure set up, remembering that software systems can go wrong!

Technology challenges ahead

Technology is constantly evolving – with artificial intelligence the latest emergence – and with major scandals such as Horizon, I expect various regulatory and legislative changes to how software is managed.

That is why at Crown Workforce Management, we have a working group set up that is dedicated to evolving how we, as a service supplier, respond and tackle any potential challenges to ensure our workforce management systems remain market-leading.