Government Banks’ Digital Project a ‘Cross-Spectrum Disaster’ That Exposes Taxpayers to Risk | Computerweekly

Britain’s National Savings and Investments (NS&I) bank is exposing taxpayers to “unacceptable risks” because it fails to understand the costs of a digital project that has already raised £3 billion.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said NS&I has not accepted what went wrong with the project, which was intended to modernize operations.

According to a report, costs have risen by £1.3 billion since the project started Report of the National Audit Office (NAO)..

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the PAC, said the NS&I project “has been a disaster across the spectrum”. In a report, the committee of MPs said: “NS&I has no workable plan, lacked the skills to implement it and has no idea of ​​the final cost of the project.”

The project was “estimated” to cost £3 billion by the end of 2024, but the PAC warned that taxpayers’ money could continue to flow into the project with no certainty that it will be delivered.

Last month the government confirmed £109 million in additional funding, pending parliamentary approval. “It is deeply troubling that NS&I was unable to tell the PAC how much had been spent on the program to date,” the PAC said.

The committee warned that while £43 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on consultants for the project, the NS&I remains “vague about how they hold them to account”. It added that there are further risks to NS&I’s entire business, and especially to its customers, if the program is not successful.

The report labeled the replacement of NS&I’s core banking engine, on which key work has yet to commence, as “an extremely risky part of the programme”. It seeks confirmation on how NS&I will strengthen and embed a risk management framework.

The old core banking platform, which has been provided through an outsourcing contract with Atos since 1999, will be replaced by a cloud-native platform from software supplier SBS, formerly Sopra Banking Software.

SBSs SBP digital core platform is expected to be introduced in 2028.

NS&I, which has been around for 160 years and has approximately 24 million customers, outsourced its back office activities to Siemens IT Solutions and Services, now Atos, in 1999.

Overconfident

The PAC accused the NS&I of being “overconfident” in its delivery capabilities and there was little evidence to support this. “It has no workable plan for it after five years, and no idea of ​​its ultimate cost,” the report said.
The PAC said the bank has a “good news culture,” meaning decisions are not made and disagreements are not resolved.
HM Treasury said it had had to intervene after a number of serious setbacks before it could give the matter the attention it deserved.
Clifton-Brown said: “NS&I’s original name for its problematic digital modernization efforts was Project Rainbow. It is perhaps unsurprising that this cheerful name for the scheme was abandoned, as our report finds it has been a disaster across the spectrum.
“It is deeply concerning to see a project at such an important organization so derailed that neither this committee, nor sometimes the Treasury itself, could gain an accurate understanding of costs and progress,” he added. “Until NS&I has a realistic plan for its transformation in place, our committee is concerned that taxpayers are at serious risk of throwing good money after bad in delivering this programme.”