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Public Accounts Committee report on HMRC effectiveness
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MPs: HMRC has bitten off more than it can chew

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16th Jan 2018
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The UK tax department is struggling to stay on top of 15 simultaneous transformation initiatives and risks being blown further off course by Brexit, the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warned last week.

While the MPs’ report relies heavily on last year’s audit of the 2016-17 HMRC accounts by the National Audit Office, the committee grilled HMRC chief executive Jon Thompson and his colleagues in November 2017 on some of the issues raised, including internal efficiencies, savings claims and customer service.

The MPs also looked into HMRC’s shift to 13 regional centres and found that the costs had risen by almost £600m (an increase of 22%); yet another example where the claimed benefits were not stacking up once the department attempted to implement change.

HMRC officials revealed that they had around 250 transformation projects in their portfolio – and that Brexit would add another 40 or so. With so much going on and not enough resources in place to support them, HMRC needed to make “difficult decisions”, said PAC chair Meg Hillier. The big risk, as she saw it, was that HMRC would be driven by the need to maximise revenue rather than considering the needs of all taxpayers.

‘Not credible to continue as is’

Thompson responded to the committee in November, “I do not believe it is credible for us to continue with the transformation programme as it is.” As a result, he and his senior managers had undertaken a reprioritisation exercise but were not in a position to reveal the details to the MPs.

The committee examined how the department was reacting to the falling estimates of savings from its regional reorganisation and technology transformation project (including MTD), as revealed in last year’s HMRC accounts.

In response, Thompson said, “The assumptions that were made in 2015 about the reduction in customer contact and customer demand because of the digitisation agenda were extreme…

“Reaching those levels for a sustained period of five years will take a significant amount of work. If we do not reach them, customer services will be at some risk, which is something we have to avoid… we are very conscious of that.”

He claimed that HMRC was beginning to see movements in the right direction, with an 8% reduction in telephony demand, “but that needs to be sustained for four years”.

Professional bodies respond

Responding to the PAC report, ICAEW Tax Faculty chief Frank Haskew commented: “HMRC’s CEO has showed great candour about the problems facing HMRC and that something has to give. This is to be applauded. Government and HMRC now need to engage with taxpayers and stakeholders about what can realistically be achieved given the need to maintain standards.”

But the implications for service levels and the state of HMRC’s IT systems concerned Yvette Nunn, co-chair of ATT’s Technical Steering Group.

“There are serious concerns as to whether HMRC’s digital infrastructure can cope today,” she said. “We have already seen unexpected system failures during the busy self assessment tax season in January 2018, as well as delays in giving agents access to the Trust Registration Service.”

CIOT tax policy director John Cullinane questioned some of the tax department’s claimed improvements in customer service and call handling. While HMRC is claiming clear improvements, the statistics warrant further investigation to see if this is due in part to switching off some services.

“For example, early in 2017 HMRC stopped providing pay and tax details over the phone to agents, because HMRC were being flooded with calls,” said Cullinane. “But they did this before a suitable alternative arrangement was made available. This risks HMRC being seen to say that customer service has improved, when in fact in some areas they are simply providing less of a service.”

Replies (7)

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the sea otter
By memyself-eye
17th Jan 2018 10:04

If HMRC was a private company it would be called Carillion...
Then at least it could legitimately say it had (past tense) 'customers'

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Dave Chaplin
By Dave Chaplin
17th Jan 2018 17:12

Government IT projects are a wonderful cash cow to large "land and expand" consultancies. Government staff have an inbuilt tendency to not want to commit to clear measurable system requirements, for fear of failure and being made accountable. And even if they get it wrong, they have jobs for life anyhow. So we end up with vague, hand wavy requirements that are a dream to large consultancies, who continue to charge for system changes when inevitably requirements are not met.

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Replying to davechaplin:
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By SM80
18th Jan 2018 14:09

Reminds me of that episode of Yes Minister where a rogue fellow suggests they actually set targets for what success would look like - much to the distaste of Humpy et al.

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By G Webber CTA
22nd Jan 2018 10:17

I wonder how much of the increased cost relates to trying to recruit people to work on the project, people who have been mistreated by HMRC. Key in this are IT contractors who are suffering what Meg Hillier in PAC said was a need for HMRC to chase revenue at the expense of fairness.

It continues to amaze me how Mel Stride MP can satnd up and say "we don't use retrospection" (In Parliament last week) when the bill being debated rioght now, does exactly that.

If we have the MPs saying one thing and HMRC another, is it any wonder that the reputation of both is going south?

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By johnjenkins
22nd Jan 2018 14:12

Telephony has gone down 8%.
mmmm let me see. Ah yes. It takes half an hour (that's if anyone answers) to get someone who hasn't got a clue and will e-mail your query to the relevant tax office. Maybe that's why people don't bother phoning anymore.
Now if you provide less of a service there can only be one complaint and that is your providing less of a service. All makes sense to me.
January sick and tired etc. etc. and on the "b" side Never give up.

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By North East Accountant
23rd Jan 2018 08:45

Not often I defend HMRC but they should firmly tell MP's to stop making silly changes to the tax system every 5 minutes then.

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Replying to North East Accountant:
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By johnjenkins
23rd Jan 2018 08:56

Not sure but perhaps they're making silly changes on the advice of HMRC.

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