Former Fujitsu executive steps down from Cabinet Office role

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Fujitsu’s former UK head has stepped down from his role at the Cabinet Office, following criticism of the Japanese company for its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Michael Keegan will leave his post as a crown representative at the Cabinet Office. He was appointed to the role responsible for managing the government’s relationship with BAE Systems in September 2019.

Keegan, the husband of UK education secretary Gillian Keegan, held senior posts at Fujitsu when the company’s actions regarding Post Office convictions came to light in a series of court hearings.

His departure from the Cabinet Office was posted in an update on the department’s website on Friday. The government declined to comment.

Keegan, who left Fujitsu in 2018, had held the post of UK chief executive for little more than a year between March 2014 and June 2015. He continued as the company’s head of technology across Europe and the Middle East before departing in July 2018.

More than 900 sub-postmasters were convicted using data from Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system, including 700 prosecuted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015.

Keegan left the company before the High Court ruled in December 2019 that the discovery of more than two dozen “bugs, errors and defects” had revealed a “material risk” that Horizon was to blame for the faulty data used by the Post Office in their prosecutions.

A government insider said Keegan’s decision to leave the Cabinet Office was voluntary and not part of an effort to remove any alleged conflicts of interest ahead of ministers’ talks with Fujitsu over the sub-postmasters’ compensation settlement. Keegan’s role at the Cabinet Office was part-time and carried a £500 daily rate.

Fujitsu has agreed to contribute to a £1bn compensation fund set aside by the government to offer redress to more than 4,000 people…