MPs brand NS&I's £3B IT overhaul a 'full-spectrum disaster'
- Reference: 1770985874
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/13/nsandi_pac_latest/
- Source link:
In [1]a report published on Friday , the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) delivered a scathing review of National Savings & Investments' (NS&I) years-long digital transformation effort, saying the project continues to expose taxpayers to "unacceptable risks."
The project, once cheerfully branded "Project Rainbow," was intended to modernize NS&I's aging infrastructure, reduce operational costs, and improve services for millions of customers. Instead, it has become a case study on how government modernization projects can spiral out of control when complexity is underestimated.
[2]
PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown wasted little time setting the tone. "NS&I's original name for its troubled digital modernization effort was Project Rainbow," he said. "It is perhaps unsurprising that this upbeat name for the scheme was retired as aptly our report finds it has been a full-spectrum disaster."
[3]
[4]
That tone continues throughout the report. MPs say the program has yet to deliver the promised new services and still lacks a fully integrated, credible plan outlining next steps, a timeline, and costs.
Estimates put the full cost of the overhaul at roughly £3 billion as of 2024, reflecting delays and the fact that NS&I is still running parts of the legacy infrastructure the project was meant to replace. Contracts supporting those systems have already been extended to 2028, underlining how far the transformation still has to go.
[5]
Clifton-Brown contrasted that figure with the Bank of England's renewal of its Real-Time Gross Settlement system, delivered on schedule for £431 million. What's more, when MPs asked how much had been spent on the transformation to date, NS&I couldn't provide a figure.
The bank told the PAC it believed it had "the right data," but was having difficulty extracting and presenting it from its own systems. Which is not the sort of answer you expect from a financial institution entrusted with managing tens of billions in public savings.
"It is deeply worrying to see a project in such an important organisation so off-track that neither this Committee, or at times the Treasury itself, could gain an accurate sounding on costs and progress," Clifton-Brown said.
[6]
None of this fell apart overnight. The trouble started the moment NS&I tried to pry apart banking systems that have been glued together over decades. These systems sit underneath most of its day-to-day operations, including customer accounts, payments, and internal record-keeping, which has made the overhaul harder than originally expected.
Unsurprisingly, the vision of switching off the old platform and moving to something new has been deferred. In a letter to the PAC last month, [7]NS&I said it is reassessing the program and considering scaling it back, including loosening how deeply new technology integrates with the legacy estate.
[8]NS&I's IT car crash considers cutting legacy links to stop the bleeding
[9]NS&I tech overhaul blows past Treasury spending limits
[10]Digital overhaul at UK's NS&I bank is £1.3B over budget and 4 years late
[11]Bank's struggle to replace Atos threw system back to dark ages
The shift highlights how difficult the transformation has been to execute, and staffing hasn't helped matters, according to the PAC. MPs were told NS&I spent about £43 million on consultants while pushing the overhaul forward, which Clifton-Brown says was due to the bank lacking the in-house expertise needed when the program began.
Then there is the internal culture. When MPs asked whether people inside NS&I had been too positive about progress, leadership described a "can-do" environment. Clifton-Brown said the organization has remained "bullishly confident" amid scrutiny, but said its delivery record does not exactly back that up.
He summed it up with a line that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, suggesting the program so far looks closer to "can't do."
Treasury oversight also gets a fairly sharp nudge in the report. MPs said that by the time the program was reset in 2024, delays were already entrenched and [12]costs had well exceeded early projections .
The PAC now wants NS&I to produce what sounds like the government equivalent of going back to the drawing board. A proper plan, built from scratch rather than reverse-engineered around optimistic delivery dates, that includes clearer cost reporting and actual evidence that risks are being tracked and handled.
Until the organization produces a credible recovery plan with realistic timelines and cost controls, the PAC warned, taxpayers remain exposed to the risk that Project Rainbow's pot of gold may never materialize. ®
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[1] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/51662/documents/286154/default/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aY9YswAQanmuuJtwtrL88gAAAZY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aY9YswAQanmuuJtwtrL88gAAAZY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aY9YswAQanmuuJtwtrL88gAAAZY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aY9YswAQanmuuJtwtrL88gAAAZY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aY9YswAQanmuuJtwtrL88gAAAZY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/30/nsandi_latest/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/30/nsandi_latest/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/nsi_treasury_spending_cap/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/14/nsandi_nao_report/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/07/nsandi_atos/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/nsi_treasury_spending_cap/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Business as usual
It's just box ticking. We'll just raise our eyebrows and you keep doing what you are doing.
That said, it's not a disaster, because someone has pocketed that £3bn.
Long gone are the days where civil service actually delivered for British people. They are now delivering for usual suspects and we are the cash cows.
Re: Business as usual
I see you have been downvoted for spilling truth beans.
The PAC is just there to pretend it is useful.
Re: Business as usual
Actually, I think PAC is useful, it is doing what Parliament as a whole should be doing. I’m not aware of any other Parliamentary Committee that actually takes responsibility to dig into matters and ask awkward questions. Perhaps they should be given powers to fire ministers et al…
Re: Business as usual
PAC is as useful as fidgeting toy. Feels nice, but otherwise it is useless.
They also show the scale of the institutional decay. If bodies like SFO, NCA and others were doing their jobs, we probably wouldn't be seeing the omnishambles left, right and centre like we see now.
Re: Business as usual
If bodies like SFO, NCA and others were doing their jobs, we probably wouldn't be seeing the omnishambles left, right and centre like we see now.
Actually, if they were as bad as you imply, things would be far, far worse.
I work for a regulator, directly we prosecute very few companies each year. But we start off with tens of thousands of cases each year, and deal with them through proportionate action. For lots of these it's simple answering a query, or signposting a company to published guidance. For a smaller group we issue bespoke technical or legal advice (eg on what is or is not permitted, or how we'd respond to some change), a smaller group where we carry out an investigation but find no issues with compliance. For a yet smaller group we investigate and require businesses to stop doing some particular action. Beyond that there's statutory notices which means formally writing to a company in the name of the secretary of state, and telling them to change their ways because we're on to them, and if they don't comply it's straight off to court. There's notices to warn, that can require a company to contact its customers and 'fess up that its behaviour has been non-compliant. There's voluntary undertakings, where change is needed but we're confident there's no public risk so the company agree with us a plan of action to bring them into compliance. Some cases get referred to other regulators or enforcement bodies. And only at the end of that do we have that handful of prosecutions, where we believe that the public interest is best served by prosecution.
Over and above that, we go out of our way to let the regulated businesses know who we are, what we want to achieve. That can be press releases, working with industry associations, placement of articles or relevant news in the trade press, participating at conferences. Most companies are big enough and professional enough that we don't need to do anything more - they know there are regulations and standards they need to obey, they know we're here to drive compliance, and that there's consequences for not complying.
I can off the top of my head think of a decent number of instances where the most significant harm possible has been caused by non-compliance with the rules my regulator enforces. Those are all in the public domain, and you could assert that this regulator is failing as you have for "SFO, NCA and others". What that ignores is that in the the overwhelming majority of cases, regulations and standards are complied with, regulation is working as intended, but that a decision has been democratically made by your elected leaders about how assertive the regulator should be, and the resources that are available to regulators.
Re: Business as usual
That sounds very neat and yet the country is dropping in corruption indices like a minister’s recall under questioning.
regulations and standards are complied with, regulation is working as intended, but that a decision has been democratically made by your elected leaders about how assertive the regulator should be, and the resources that are available to regulators.
Indeed. Boxes been ticked, nothing to see here. Move along pleb.
Re: Business as usual
>decision has been democratically made
Suggesting anything about regulators in the UK is democratic makes me bristle.
They're unelected and neither ministers nor parliament appear to have very much control over them. And to boot they're opaque and make themselves bloody difficult for the public to deal with. And over the years several of them have gone native and started rooting for the industry they're supposed to be the watchdog for.
That aside, I think it good you took the trouble to explain what you did.
Re: Business as usual
Not really - if they were actually useful, they'd ask the awkward questions BEFORE the project kicked off, and then as others have said above, hold the individuals responsible to account regardless of whether or not they've moved on...
The business of government....
...is to move public money into the pockets of their chums, as fast as they can.
This one will have gone down particularly well, as they shovelled tonnes of cash and are now going for an encore.
I can only repeat: Everyone in a position of power or authority in the UK is incompetent, corrupt, or both.
Re: The business of government....
Everyone in a position of power or authority in the UK is incompetent, corrupt, or both.
Time for you to find a country you prefer, then?
Re: The business of government....
He will quickly discover that people everywhere are mostly the same.
Same greed, same urge to get rich quick etc.
Some countries recognise that as problem more than the others.
Here in the UK the approach is that public purse is for political class to squander and if gets empty they wheel out Chancellor to ask for more.
More people see that making effort is not rewarded, so they stay for easy pickings and civil service looks away, because of "me golden pension".
NS&I
No Savings & Inevitable overspend.
Never Seen It (the budget)
Nobody Stopped It
Couldn't they borrow the ERNIE from the Science Museum to tide them over until this mess is fixed?
Business as usual
The PAC do a reasonably good job of roasting senior civil servants over failing projects, unfortunately the evidence is there, and a morning of embarrassment in front of the committee is clearly not sufficient to persuade people they need to do better. Long since about time that actual accountabilities were stated up front, and those people get dismissed if there's a failure, even if they've moved on to a new civil service gig. Obviously it also requires the wasters of parliament to grow up and take their generous share of the responsibility - so Sir Geoffrey might want to reflect on which party was in government for the majority of the time of this project, and name and shame relevant ministers for any poor decisions, or failure to make decisions, and failure to pay attention to the progress of projects under their control.