MPs brand NS&I's £3B IT overhaul a 'full-spectrum disaster'

Britain's state-backed savings bank has been dragged over the coals by Parliament's spending watchdog, which has branded its long-running digital overhaul a £3 billion "full-spectrum disaster."

In 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.

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 ...