With the end of 2015 in sight, we asked Whitehall's top officials to review the year, set out their priorities for 2016 – and shed some light on their festive plans. National Savings & Investments (NS&I) chief executive Jane Platt takes part in our biggest-ever perm secs' round-up series...
How did you tackle the biggest challenges facing your organisation in 2015?
NS&I’s biggest challenge in 2015 was to deliver the market-leading 65+ Bonds announced by the chancellor in the 2014 Budget.
Aware of the interest the 65+ Bonds would generate, we took a range of steps to manage demand. We doubled our call centre’s size from around 300 to around 600 staff. We recruited an extra 430 staff for back office work. We also sought to manage initial volumes by not announcing the specific “on sale” date in advance.
From the day they went on sale in January, the 65+ Bonds proved phenomenally popular. In the first three days more than £2.3bn were sold. Indeed, the second day saw the highest number of online sales ever through nsandi.com: £647m.
By the time 65+ Bonds were withdrawn from sale on 15 May, NS&I had provided over one million savers with the opportunity to invest over £13bn and 65+ Bonds had become the biggest selling retail financial product in Britain’s modern history.
What are your department’s top priorities in the year ahead?
For our retail customers, a top priority in the year ahead is to continue to improve the experience of using NS&I’s digital channels, so that even more customers choose them. This will increase momentum towards our target of at least 75% of all customer interactions happening over digital channels (i.e. non-paper direct channels) by 2018–19.
Our Government Payment Services activities continue to grow and a key priority over the next 12 months will be to prepare for the start of the government’s new Tax-Free Childcare scheme, which NS&I is delivering in partnership with HMRC.
We will also continue to work with other government departments to offer modern, secure and highly competitive banking and payments systems. Our solutions transform the customer experience and reduce costs while creating savings for taxpayers.
What film do you hope to watch over the festive period?
I’m hoping that Maggie Smith as The Lady in the Van will still be available. I was lucky enough to see the stage version – an extraordinary, true and thought-provoking story. As for Christmas games, it has to be charades.
Perm secs round-up 2015: Whitehall's top civil servants review the year – and look ahead to 2016