The government-owned National Savings & Investment (NS&I) bank is closely engaging with the Bank of England’s CIO as it seeks support with its ongoing IT transformation disaster.
Furthermore, the most senior civil servants in government departments have been contacted following high praise for the central bank’s project to replace its core IT, the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.
During a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting, MPs questioned Bank of England leaders about its success story, which, in a glowing report published in December 2025, the National Audit Office (NAO) said offers lessons for other government departments.
PAC member Catherine McKinnell MP said it was “unusual” for the committee to be discussing a successful project, but added: “I am pleased to say we are looking at a success story and to try and extrapolate from that why, and how we can do it even better in the future right across government, where we know there is much digital renewal that needs to happen.”
The project began in 2017, when the Bank of England developed a blueprint that outlined the main goals. In July 2025, Computer Weekly reported that the bank’s replacement of the RTGS system, which processes £800bn in payments a day, had gone live after a staged project.
In contrast, during a recent PAC meeting last month, chair Geoffrey Clifton said the NS&I’s project had been “a full-spectrum disaster”. In a report, the committee of MPs said NS&I has no workable plan, lacks the skills to deliver it, and has no idea of the eventual cost of the project.
This followed a damning NAO report on the project, which revealed costs have increased by £1.3bn since the project started.
Dave Ramsden, deputy chair at the Bank of England, said the NS&I is already in contact with staff at the UK central bank. “Thanks to the NAO report, NS&I have been engaging very closely with Nathon Monk [CIO] and Victoria Cleland [chief cashier] on what they can learn, because they are obviously in flight at the moment,” he said.
“Obviously, we have other things to do, but within reason, we want to help the NAO,” he added. “The report does a great job in synthesising what we did.”
Permanent secretaries across government departments were also pointed to the NAO’s report on the RTGS project. Clive Betts MP said the committee has invited civil servants to an event in April to help them better understand the lessons from the RTGS project. He added that this was the only time in his career that he had shared a report with “virtually every permanent secretary” to bring it to their attention. He said he had also received responses from many of them, stating they “will use it in their teams”.
The Bank of England’s Cleland warned that emulating the central bank’s success requires “hard work”.
She said: “[The NAO] report, which is really great, makes it look like we are a swan, but there was a lot of significant paddling underneath, so I don’t want people to go away thinking this was easy. There was a lot of work by a lot of people to get there.”
