NS&I Government Payment Services saves MoJ's Court Funds Office 25% in first year

• For over 150 years NS&I has operated payment services through its savings brand -its new direction will enable it to reduce its budget
• The Court Funds Office has reduced risk and enhanced timeliness for payment processing and correspondence as a result of using NS&I’s modern, robust, banking system

NS&I began offering its payment processing services to other government bodies under the brand name NS&I Government Payment Services in 2011. The move, by the agency of HM Treasury, will enable it to continue to deliver cost effective financing for government and to reduce its department expenditure limit, as required by the 2010 Spending Review.

NS&I has been processing customer payments since it was established over 150 years ago and now has over £100 billion invested by millions of savers. In 2011-12 NS&I’s UK-based contact centres handled more than 3.4 million calls, and supported transactions with a total value of circa £35 billion.

NS&I successfully took over all transaction processing services for the Court Funds Office (CFO) on 1 December 2011. The CFO provide a banking and administration service for some 140,000 customers with a total of £3.3 billion cash and £0.2 billion securities held under the control of the civil courts in England and Wales, including the Court of Protection. In the first year, the CFO and its clients have benefited from NS&I’s modern, robust, banking system, bringing with it 25% savings on a like-for-like basis.

NS&I Executive Director, Julian Hynd, said:

“The 2010 Spending Review recognised that we can deliver large scale payment processing across a modern, reliable banking system. We are now beginning to share our expertise and capacity with other areas of government to help reduce whole of government costs, and enhance other government payment services.

“Across the public sector organisations face the dual challenge of improving performance and reducing costs. Our proven track record, from requirement definition through to live operations, means we can work with other government organisations to deliver an improved service to their customers and, crucially, lower their costs – delivering a real benefit to the taxpayer.”

Eddie Bloomfield, Head of the Office of the Accountant General who have oversight of the CFO, said:

“We have been able to reduce our overall costs to our clients by 25% and to place the business on a sound footing for the future.”

In 1999 NS&I entered into a groundbreaking outsourcing agreement with Siemens who assumed responsibility for delivering NS&I’s customer facing and back office services. In July 2011 Siemens IT Solutions and Services was acquired by Atos. The partnership continues to transform NS&I, delivering huge cost savings, building a modern and robust banking system, and transforming the service delivered to NS&I’s customers – with customer satisfaction levels in 2011-12 of 88%.

NS&I has established a team who – together with colleagues at Atos – are now actively working to raise awareness of the opportunity with other government departments and agencies.

Further information on NS&I’s Government Payment Services 

Note to Editors

1. NS&I, best known for the UK’s most popular savings product Premium Bonds, is one of the largest savings organisations in the UK, offering a range of savings and investments to almost 26 million customers. All products offer 100% capital security, because NS&I is backed by HM Treasury.

2. The transition of payment services to NS&I from CFO can be viewed in detail on the NS&I GPS website