NS&I's "Fresh Start": They’ve Dragged Sir Jim Harra Out
of Retirement – The Same Bloke Who Turned HMRC Customer Service Into a
National Disgrace
Hello folks, you poor savers still hoping your Premium Bonds might
actually pay out one day, or that your NS&I account won’t
mysteriously vanish into the ether. While HMRC continues its proud
tradition of hanging up on deadline day, chasing grannies for £47, and
taking two years to cough up refunds, the government has come up with a
brilliant solution to the growing crisis at National Savings &
Investments (NS&I).
They’ve hauled Sir Jim Harra – the former First
Permanent Secretary at HMRC – out of retirement to take over as interim
chief executive. Because nothing says “fresh start” quite like
appointing the man who presided over the absolute collapse of HMRC’s
customer service.
During Harra’s reign at HMRC, helpline wait times ballooned to a record 23 minutes,
with around a third of calls going unanswered. MPs on the Public
Accounts Committee accused the department of deliberately degrading
phone services to force people online – a claim Harra dismissed as
“baseless”. Trust in the system? Shattered. Backlogs? Biblical. Refunds?
Forget it. Sick days? Half a million and counting. But sure, let’s give
this bloke the keys to NS&I, which is currently drowning in a £400m–£470m+ scandal involving missing savings, untraceable Premium Bonds, and bereaved families unable to access relatives’ money.
NS&I – the government’s own savings bank, the one that’s supposed
to be rock-solid and taxpayer-backed – has been hit by chronic failings
in tracing accounts and paying out what’s owed. The previous boss, Dax
Harkins, has been shown the door after a Telegraph investigation exposed
the scale of the mess. Now Harra gets a three-month review to
“investigate the background” and “learn lessons”.
This is peak Civil Service musical chairs. When one quango screws up
spectacularly, don’t fix the underlying problems – just shuffle in
another career mandarin who failed at the last gig. Harra couldn’t sort
HMRC’s phones, portals, or basic competence, but he’s somehow the right
man to steady NS&I’s ship? Pull the other one.
The message to every saver is crystal clear: your money might be
“100% safe” in theory, but good luck actually getting your hands on it
if the system loses track. The same bureaucratic incompetence that
leaves you on hold for an hour at HMRC is now running the savings bank
where millions of ordinary people park their cash, Premium Bonds, and
ISAs.
And the real kicker? While Harra was busy letting HMRC customer
service rot, the department was still hammering taxpayers with
penalties, trivial demands, and MTD quarterly reporting burdens. Now he
gets another cushy interim role with presumably another fat pension
top-up on the way.
This isn’t leadership. It’s institutional protection racket. The
Civil Service looks after its own – even when they’ve demonstrably
failed at the job.
But when the same clown who wrecked
HMRC’s service gets rewarded with another top job at NS&I while
savers can’t access their own money? That’s not taxing – that’s taking
the absolute piss out of the British public.
Amazon “Government Incompetence Survival Kit” Suggestions
(affiliate links – because you’ll need these while waiting for your savings to reappear)
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