Gillian Keegan’s husband quits Cabinet Office role amid criticism of his former employer Fujitsu

The husband of Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, has quit his Whitehall job after the Post Office scandal engulfed his former employer Fujitsu.

Michael Keegan stepped down from a role at the Cabinet Office after Labour said he should be investigated over what part he played in the Horizon IT fiasco.

He was formerly the UK head of Fujitsu, the Japanese firm which made the faulty accounting software which led to hundreds of sub-postmasters being wrongly accused of fraud.

After leaving the company in 2018 he joined the Cabinet Office in a role overseeing the state’s relationship with weapons manufacturer BAE systems.

He was paid £500 a day for the part-time position as a Crown Representative – an individual brought in to help foster links with key businesses.

His resignation was announced in an update on the Government website on Friday. He was replaced by Matt Wiles, a former air vice-marshal in the RAF.

Links ‘politically awkward’ for wife

Mr Keegan’s link to the Horizon scandal had made his Whitehall role politically awkward for his wife. Labour and the Liberal Democrats had raised concerns over his position and suggested that he should be grilled by the Post Office inquiry.

Asked about his role earlier in January Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said it was “right the public inquiry considers all of these questions”.

Mr Keegan was the UK chief executive of Fujitsu between March 2014 and June 2015, while prosecutions based on Horizon data were being brought.

After that he went on to become the company’s head of technology, covering Europe and the Middle East, before his departure in July 2018.

He stepped down nearly 18 months before the High Court ruled in December 2019 that there were “bugs, errors and defects” in the Horizon software.

Data from the faulty system, which made it look falsely as though money had gone missing, led to the convictions of more than 900 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015.

The victims had their reputations ruined and lost their livelihoods as a result, with many left bankrupt and some even being wrongly sent to prison.

No case to answer

Mr Keegan has denied any wrongdoing and said the only decision he made on Horizon was to cancel a tender for a new version of the software.

He has also insisted he only ever had one conversation with Paula Vennells, the shamed former Post Office boss, and that the pair did not discuss the issue.

It is understood his decision to quit the Cabinet Office was voluntary and not linked to upcoming talks between ministers and Fujitsu over compensation for sub-postmasters.

The Cabinet Office declined to comment on individual staffing matters.

Fujitsu has agreed to pay into a £1 billion compensation fund for the victims of the scandal, but has not yet said how much it will hand over.

Paul Patterson, chief executive of Fujitsu’s European arm, told MPs last week that the company was “truly sorry” for its role in the prosecutions and had a “moral obligation” to contribute.

Fujitsu has also agreed not to bid for any new government contracts until the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal has delivered its findings.

The firm is deeply embedded in the delivery of public services and has been involved in £4.9 billion of taxpayer-funded work since the December 2019 ruling.

It holds a £355 million contract to run the IT systems underpinning the Brexit border in the Irish Sea, which senior MPs have said should be revoked.

A former Post Office investigator told the inquiry into the scandal that she felt unable to challenge the data provided by Fujitsu.

Suzanne Winter admitted that she did not question the information she was provided with, saying she “got the impression that if you started to challenge too much it didn’t go well”.

She added: “I would say sorry to anybody who has been put through what I can only imagine was a nightmare, but I did not know of any problem with the Horizon system.”