The main civil service union PCS will kick off a campaign of industrial action against job cuts with a strike on Budget day, 20 March.
A spokesman for the union said there was strong logic for launching disruptive action on that day.
“The Budget is obviously a key date in the calendar for our members, because the decisions announced affect their lives, working conditions and pay,” he said.
Politically, it is a very opportune time, the PCS spokesman added, as the protest is likely to draw attention to the effects of Whitehall cutbacks that are the centrepiece of the Chancellor’s deficit-reducing agenda.
“There has been a skills drain where experienced HMRC staff have gone and it has a massive effect on the wider public. Fewer people in HMRC means the quality of service is massively reduced, as we have seen with delays in getting through on the phone,” he said.
But the union admitted that the action would be unlikely to seriously disrupt the Budget process. “We could be accused of being over-optimistic if we claimed that,” the spokesman said. The PCS is not so heavily represented among the Treasury and HMRC central teams that work on policy.
An HMRC spokesman confirmed this view. While the department will suffer some disruption, it will maintain as full a function as possible. Most of the policy documentation is completed and printed before Budget day. “There should still be some people around on the day to publish it all,” he said.
The press office would also be open as usual with staff manning all its main desks, he added.
The union and HMRC both noted that a similar action just before Alastair Darling’s 2010 Budget failed to have much impact on proceedings.
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target the most popular payday in
April and bring RTI to its knees....mind i don't think it needs much help.
Pleased they have annoucned the date for the strike, otherwise we would probably never have noticed. Given it takes HMRC a month to answer correspondence the full effect will not be felt until the 20th April.
IR35: Could HMRC union call a permanent strike here too, please
IR35: Could HMRC union(s) call a permanent strike here too, please?
REASON: It might assist to diminish their Labour party's deserved reputation as "a nasty party", e.g. also Iraq, Immigration, etc ... , especially vis-a-vis worker OAPs who were clearly particularly victimised by Labour's "fiscal horror" (CIOT's words, apparently).
Is this true?
I've heard that David Cameron has asked George Osborne to go on strike for the day too, as this will boost the party poll ratings.
Don't know how to stop digging
The department is in such a state it will barely be noticed. Most of the time we work with online services without human intervention.
I cannot afford my clients' time to call HMRC even on the agent's line as the stock reply is they will email the person concerned so it goes into the same void as the letter.
If the call centre staff are not there they cannot answer the calls, therefore less calls to produce emails.
When they get back the next day the lines are jammed solid so more callers give up all together, therefore less calls to produce less emails.
The recipients at the end of of the emails get less emails. They spend more time on the letters they already have with improvement in service. As the letters are handled more quickly fewer reminders and calls result. Fewer calls, emails and mail means no need to employ so many staff, therefore job cuts.
Am I missing something or does a strike really improve matters?
if anything it
will probably show that the hmrc are over staffed with call centre staff who add nothing to the revenues ability to deal with its 'customers' in a proficient way....