The banking sector is “investing heavily” in digital platforms, according to the body which represents the country’s lenders as many face a backlash over the latest payday glitch chaos to hit customers.

Millions were exposed on Friday to varying challenges from slow app or online banking performance to being blocked out of their accounts altogether.

Users said the brands caught up in the issues – which did not appear to be the result of a single problem – included Lloyds, Halifax, Nationwide, TSB, Bank of Scotland and First Direct.

It marked the second month in a row for payday problems and no reasons have been given for them.

Money latest: How is my bank affected by banking glitch?

The industry has been historically reluctant to talk about the common challenges but its mouthpiece, UK Finance, told Sky News there was help available and protections in place during times of disruption while acknowledging customer frustrations.

The body spoke up as MPs and regulators take a greater interest in the resilience issue due to mounting concerns over the number of glitches.

All this comes at a time when major lenders face criticism for continuing to cut branch services at a regular pace – blaming ever higher demand for online services.

The UK’s big banking brands have been shutting branches since the fallout from the financial crisis in 2008, which sparked a rush to cut costs.

The uptake of digital banking services has seen more than 6,200 sites go to the wall since 2015, according to the consumer group Which?

The latest closures were revealed last month by Lloyds – Britain’s biggest mortgage lender.

Its announcements meant that it planned, across the group, to have just 386 Lloyds-branded branches left, with Halifax down to 281.

Bank of Scotland would have just 90 once the closure programme was completed.

Critics have long accused the industry of failing to sufficiently invest their branch closure savings in better online services.

But a UK Finance spokesperson said: “All banks invest heavily in their systems and technology to ensure customers have easy access to banking services.

“Where issues arise, they work extremely hard to rectify them quickly and to support their customers.

“Banks have been posting information on their websites and social media accounts to ensure they keep customers updated.”

Are banks doing enough?

Earlier this month, The Treasury committee of MPs wrote to bank bosses to request information on the scale and impact of IT failures over the past two years.

Their responses should have been received by Wednesday.

The letters followed an outage at Barclays which led to some customers being unable to access some services for up to three days from Friday 31 January.

The day marked HMRC’s self-assessment deadline alongside pay day.

The Bank of England has also been taking a greater interest in the issue for financial stability reasons.

The MPs sought data from the banks on the volumes of customers affected by glitches – and the compensation that had been offered.

Committee chair, Dame Meg Hillier, said then: “When a bank’s IT system goes down, it can be a real problem for our constituents who were relying on accessing certain services so they can buy food or pay bills.

“For it to happen at a major bank such as Barclays at such a crucial time of year is either bad luck or bad planning. Either way, it’s important to learn what has happened and what will be done about it.

“The rapidly declining number of high street bank branches makes the impact of IT outages even more painful; that’s why I’ve decided to write to some of our biggest banks and building societies.”

From bin collections and parks to social care, it’s estimated local authorities in England provide more than 800 services for residents, touching on many different aspects of our lives all the way from childhood to elderly care.

A National Audit Office report found spending on services increased by £12.8bn – from £60bn to £72.8bn – between 2015-16 and 2023-24, a 21% increase in real terms.

Most of this increased spending – £10.3bn – has gone to adult and children’s social care, which represents councils’ biggest spend, increasing as a share of overall spending from 53% to 58% over the period.

Previous central funding cuts and an increasing population mean that spending power per person has largely stagnated, however, and remains 1% lower per person than in 2015/16, the report said.

This is a measure of the funding available to local authorities from central government grants, council tax and business rates. Though grant funding has increased in recent years, it has not yet made up for pre-2020 government cuts.

Complex needs

The population in England has increased by 5% over the period, accounting for some of this increased pressure, but it’s not the only driver.

In many areas, demand has outpaced population growth, as external events and the complexity of people’s needs has shifted over time.

The rapid increase in costs of temporary accommodation, for example, has been driven by the large increases in people facing homelessness because of inflationary pressures and housing shortages.

At the same time, demand for new adult social care plans has increased by 15%.

As life expectancies have increased, the length of time in people’s lives during which they suffer from health problems has also increased.

“We see that in adult social care that people have multiple conditions and need more and more support and often will be appearing as if they’re frailer at an earlier age. So that’s an important trend,” explained Melanie Williams, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.

“We’re constantly focusing on most urgent things at the expense of not doing the preventative work,” she added.

“When we’re just focusing on getting people home from hospital, we’re not doing that piece of work to enable them not to go there in the first place.”

Budget cliff edge over SEND spending

Meanwhile, demand for education, health and care (EHC) plans, for children with more complex special educational support needs has more than doubled, increasing by 140% to 576,000.

Budgets for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have not kept pace, meaning local authority spending has consistently outstripped government funding, leading to substantial deficits in council budgets.

Most authorities with responsibilities for SEND have overspent their budget as they have been allowed to until March 2026 on a temporary override, but they will need to draw on their own reserves to make these payments in a year.

One in three councils will have deficits that they can’t cover when the override ends.

Cuts to services

In the latest figures for 2023/24, the NAO found £3 in every £5 of services spending by English local authorities went towards social care and education, totalling £42.3bn.

This has left little headroom for other services, many of which have experienced real-terms financial cuts over the same time period, with councils forced to identify other services like libraries, parks and the arts to make savings.

But, Williams warned, cultural and environmental services like these can play a vital role in wellbeing and may actually exacerbate demand for social care.

“For us to be able to safeguard both adults and children – so people that need extra support – we do need that wider bit for councils to do,” said Williams, who also serves as corporate director of adult social care for Nottingham County Council.

“It’s no good me just providing care and support if somebody can’t go out and access a park, or go out and access leisure, or go out and have that wider support in the community.”

Commenting on the report, Cllr Tim Oliver, chairman of the County Councils Network, said: “As we have warned, councils have little choice but to spend more and more on the most demand-intensive services, at the expense of everything else – leaving them providing little more than care services.

“It is market-specific cost pressures, mainly in adult social care, children’s services, and special educational needs, that are driving councils’ costs rather than deprivation. Therefore government must recognise and address these pressures in its fair funding review, otherwise it will push many well-run councils to the brink.”

Fighting fires

The NAO report describes a vicious cycle where councils’ limited budgets have resulted in a focus on reactive care addressing the most urgent needs.

More efficient preventative care that could lower demand in the long term has fallen to the wayside.

In one example cited by the NAO, the Public Health Grant, which funds preventative health services, is expected to fall in real terms by £846m (20.1%) between 2015/16 and 2024/25.

Other areas have seen a switch in funding from prevention to late intervention.

Councils’ funding towards homelessness support services increased by £1.57bn between 2015/16 and 2013/24, while money for preventative and other housing services fell by £0.64bn.

Financing overhaul needed

Since 2018, seven councils have issued section 114 notices, which indicate that a council’s planned spending will breach the Local Government Finance Act when the local authority believes it’s become unable to balance its budget.

And 42 local authorities have received over £5bn of support through the Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) framework since its introduction in 2020.

According to a recent Local Government Association survey referenced in the NAO report, up to 44% of councils believe they’ll have to issue a section 114 notice within the next two years should the UK government cease providing exceptional financial support.

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Looking ahead to upcoming funding settlements, and the government’s planned reforms of local government, the NAO warns that short-term measures to address acute funding shortfalls have not addressed the systemic weaknesses in the funding model, with a whole system overhaul required.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said: “Short-term support is a sticking plaster to the underlying pressures facing local authorities. Delays in local audits are further undermining public confidence in local government finances.

“There needs to be a cross-government approach to local government finance reform, which must deliver effective accountability and value for money for taxpayers.”

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Victims of ‘Capture’, a second faulty Post Office accounting system, say their redress scheme may not be in place until the autumn.

Former sub-postmasters and their relatives met with government representatives for an update on compensation.

While lawyers describe “positive steps”, some victims have told Sky News that they are disappointed with the timescale and described coming up against the “grinding wheels of bureaucracy”.

Capture software was an accounting system rolled out in Post Office branches between 1992 and 1999 and was likely to have caused false shortfalls.

It was the predecessor to Horizon, which led to hundreds of sub-postmasters being wrongly convicted of stealing between 1999 and 2015.

Former sub-postmaster Lee Bowerman, who was never accused of stealing but had to sell his Post Office business after using Capture, said the meeting was a “damp squib” and criticised “the grinding wheels of bureaucracy”.

He agreed that the proposed redress scheme would be “quicker than Horizon” but added “you can’t use them as a yardstick because at the end of the day …people still haven’t been paid out”.

Mr Bowerman added: “So don’t compare us to them when those schemes aren’t even fit for purpose.”

Around 100 Capture victims so far could be eligible for redress.

The scheme, however, would not apply to anyone currently convicted.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) have confirmed that they are now reviewing 27 Capture convictions.

Victims were told the government is considering a separate “fast track” redress scheme for anyone who has their conviction overturned in the future.

Steve Marston’s case is among those being considered after he was convicted of stealing from his branch in 1996 following shortfalls of nearly £80,000.

“I don’t think it would be human nature not to be disappointed that [the redress scheme] is not being sorted out in the next couple of days even,” he said.

“But we are talking about the government, aren’t we? They’ve got to fill in a form in triplicate, get it rubber stamped three times and that’s for a box of paper clips,” he added.

“I mean it is what it is, we have got to roll with it, stick in there and keep pushing as much as we can”.

Clare Brennan, daughter of Peter Lloyd-Halt, who was a sub-postmaster accused of stealing whilst using Capture, said she and her mother Agnes found the meeting “positive”.

She went on to describe a “weight being lifted” after they were told that it had been officially recognised that Mr Lloyd-Halt had worked for the Post Office.

The family say all Mr Lloyd-Halt’s documents and evidence have been lost and it’s been a challenge to their case.

Lawyers for victims also described “positive steps” towards a new compensation scheme, following the government meeting.

Read more:
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Neil Hudgell, of Hudgell Solicitors, said that they were “reassured by the Department for Business and Trade today that good progress is being made with learnings taken from previous Post Office compensation schemes to form this one”.

He added that “there is a clear willingness to do right by those who have suffered at the hands of the Post Office in relation to Capture”.

“We always appreciate that redress can never come quick enough for these victims and we push as much as we can to take things forward.”

A spokesperson from the Department for Business and Trade said: “Officials met with postmasters today as part of the government’s commitment to develop an effective and fair redress process that takes into account the circumstances of those affected by Capture.

“Ensuring postmasters are treated with dignity and respect is our absolute priority and we will continue to update on the development of the redress mechanism as it progresses.”

The next meeting with Capture victims is due in April.