HMRC announced to its staff this lunchtime that it is closing 281 Face to Face Enquiry Centres by June this year.
As PCS, the union for most PCS staff has said:
PCS is fundamentally opposed to this decision. We believe that our Enquiry Centres provide a vital public service, which allows taxpayers to access free, expert advice from highly skilled HMRC staff. We fundamentally disagree with HMRC's view that the new NES service provides a better service by diverting taxpayers from a free, face-to-face appointment to costly, under-staffed telephone lines. We are also extremely concerned about the implications of this decision on the 1,300 people currently working in Face to Face who are now faced with extremely difficult decisions about their future in HMRC.
HMRC has been running down the Enquiry Centre service for a number of years HMRC themselves acknowledge that footfall in our Enquiry Centres has reduced by more than 50% between 2005 and 2013, however they fail to acknowledge that this is entirely a result of their own cuts to this vital public service, which has included reducing Enquiry Centre opening hours and relocating Enquiry Centres from existing HMRC offices to other premises, where they are much more difficult for the taxpaying public to access.
Despite HMRC's protestations that no decision was taken until after the pilot concluded in December 2013, it has been clear to PCS negotiations, members and the general public that the exercise has been deeply flawed. To date the employer has refused to share the findings of the pilot with us and members will no doubt draw their own conclusions for the reasons for this. Throughout the pilot, HMRC repeatedly changed the pilot scope to deliver the appropriate findings which would justify this decision: they expanded the geographical scope from a defined pilot area in the North East and Yorkshire & Humber to all customers accessing our telephone lines anywhere in the UK, they abandoned the very “drivers of need” that they claimed defined NES customers and offered the new service to anyone who needed help, and they revised their projections when the number of taxpayers accessing the new service failed to reach the expected demand.
PCS is fundamentally opposed to job cuts in HMRC. We believe that office closures and job cuts on the scale currently planned will undermine HMRC's ability to deliver against its core objectives which are to collect taxes to close the Tax Gap and to provide a vital service to the taxpaying public.
Those are sentiments with which I agree, and not just because I work with the union on occasion. Many in the tax profession share this view. And many more besides believe that the presence of a tax office in a community is a crucial indication of the vital relationship between people and the government that asks for the tax that they pay. HMRC has a duty to be available to people to explain that tax, and for many a telephone call is not an appropriate way of achieving this aim.
I am also shocked to learn that HMRC have also announced that they intend to scrap another 500 admin grade posts today. I gather from other sources that these posts are amongst maybe 8,000 jobs HMRC hopes to dispense with between now and March 2015 when just 54,000 people will be left in its employment, with more posts planned to be axed after that date.
The point has been made many times here, and across the tax profession, that the service HMRC is providing is being compromised by these staff cuts. Worse, they are happening at a time when the tax gap is rising at considerable cost to the UK. They make no economic sense as a result. They can, therefore, only be driven by dogma with the aim of shrinking the size of the government.
I am pleased to note that both HMRC unions are planning to oppose these cuts, although job losses are inevitable as a result of them. That's why the campaign for tax justice is so important. It cannot be delivered without trained personal in community based offices who can collect the tax owing to fund public services. I hope work I do this year will support that goal.
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It’s also worth mentioning that the additional 500 job to go are in compliance work. It’s not just that they don’t care about service to the public. They don’t care about the tax gap either.
I worked for Collection until 2008, when I succumbed to the pressure to leave. The office closed about 18 months later.
It became clear that the only measure is “efficiency” – Collecting £400 bn for the cost of £4bn (99%) is more efficient than collecting £450bn at a cost of £6bn (98.6%). This was the only explanation for closing a compliance unit that cost £75m, but brought in £275m – it was closed for ‘efficiency savings’.
We used to have people phone us because they couldn’t get through or the service was so poor from the phone units. Our advice as collectors on ‘inspector’ matters was actually better than that from the dedicated phone units. Part of the problem was at many of the staff had no or little training, and were following a computer script, almost in the manner of a ‘pick your own adventure’ book. Go off script and they are lost. Those who did know what they were doing (having transferred in from local offices) told us they were not allowed to go off script, give advice outside what was asked, and even had a set number of questions they were allowed per phone call.
This is the efficiency of the madhouse
Or perhaps, more precisely, the MBA
“Or perhaps, more precisely, the MBA”
That’s a good one Mr. M.
“I gather from other sources that these posts are amongst maybe 8,000 jobs HMRC hopes to dispense with”
So they haven’t ‘announced’ 8,000 job losses at all, then.
Some people who come here might be trolls.. but others just wish you’d stop lying in your headlines. It’s embarassing to those who of us who share some of your objectives, but not your love of cheap tabloid tactics. And let’s make no bones about it.. your headline is a lie.
I think the government has an obligation to ordinary taxpayers to have a comprehensive face-to-face service available. The cost is minuscule relative to the value collected by HMRC. I haven’t used these services but, on the face of it, this looks like a big step in the wrong direction. Efficiency is good. I think the advent of online services should justify a much smaller HMRC than in the age of paper. But there are huge ‘soft’ benefits to having real people in real places who will talk to people ‘in real life’. They are worth paying for.
I have been advised HMRC had 62,000 FTE staff in December 2013 and plan to have 54,000 in March 2015
Tell me how that is not 8,000 job losses?
FTE = full time equivalent, so possibly more than 8000 to go!
You need to take I to account the natural wastage over the next 5 years and not assume the reduction will be job losses. The age profile for HMRC is such that much of the wastage will be through retirement. Everyone is moving to a new digital era which in itself means less human contact and we all like using digital services but without realising it means less human interaction.
I am aware of the digitisation programme – I presume this data comes from it
But you can’t lose 8,000 people in a year by natural wastage
“Tell me how that is not 8,000 job losses?”
Tell me how it is an ‘announcement’.
I think this is moving into the realms of pedantry
Shall we focus on the issue instead?
It doesn’t matter if its natural wastage, it’s still 8,000 less people in the Revenue, and 8,000 not being picked up from the available pool.
Agreed
I worked in C&E SCOTLAND FOR 38 YEARS
And as far back as 1988 I wrote in the style of Rabbie Burns the following
“Despite the fact that each man jack
Gives ten times the cost of his salary back
It makes mair sense to you Alack
Tae cut the posts
So much for sense a bairn could tell
That’s money lost”
The cuts have continued since then and the the Board of HMRC continue to insist that they are doing the job. NOT A CHANCE !!!!!
How can these cut be called for in the name of “efficiency”
Just look at the Tax Gap and cut cuts being imposed elsewhere because we are nor collecting all that is due
There is a distinction to be made here between job losses and people losing their jobs.
HMRC does indeed plan to have 6,000, 8,000 or 10,000 less staff at various dates in 2015 or 2016, varying according to the announcement you read. Most of this may well be done by natural wastage as HMRC is an ageing Department, having hardly recruited since 2004. These reductions are of concern to any one who cares about its service to the public or its failure to tackle tax evasion.
Today’s announcements are a direct threat to the staff involved. The 1300 Enquiry Centre staff and 500 compliance staff have been told they personally don’t have a job and should apply for a voluntary exit package. The work they do will be left undone, and the voluntary may well become compulsory, as many are stranded in offices which HMRC will want to close.
I agree
yesterday I noticed an appalling add by HMRC using an image of eyes peering through a rent in a wall – it was a threatening and disgusting image in my view with no real social value -I wonder how much this cost.
I’ve seen that too
What does it say about how the top management think of themselves?
And what image are they trying to sell?
The image of the big bad tax collector coming after every last penny they can from the (wo)man on the street. Meanwhile, they apparently can’t be bothered with the pressing and labour intensive issue of tackling tax avoidance at the top end of the scale. You can’t see this, but that creepy peeping tax man has shot off his kneecaps with a revolver behind that wall (no doubt to be revealed in a leaflet drop to the CFOs of the FTSE250, captioned with the words ‘We’re not watch you Sir, sorry to have bothered you.)
Tax is a people business, not an IT function.It’s a social duty not a business. But even in the contributions of those against the cuts I see the language of the cutters- “soft skills”, “human interaction”. What a load of bull the Lords of IT have brought into the language.
Already most tax is being paid by the (decreasing) amount of Compliant people or organizations. Only Token effort is expended on the Non compliant.
I don’t mind Enquiry centres moving e.g. into Post offices, property costs can be minimised, but removing face to face meeting is utter, utter stupidity.It’s not just the money it’s people’s contributions to our national well being.
Thanks
Good to have an accountant agreeing
i like the idea of the centres moving into other existing govt buildings – although you might have forgotten that the post office is now privatised so they would presumably require a market rent!
maybe job centres (some irony in here somewhere probably) is the more realistic location for them (struggling to think of any other govt owned buildings widely distributed around the country other than the emergency services or hospitals…………)
Apart from Jobcentres the other widely spread Government department with an office in just about every major town (although no longer in little market towns) is……………………HMRC!
Not for much longer, is the point
Post Office is still 100% state owned. Not to confuse with Royal Mail…
Surely, this is an example of cognitive dissonance at senior manager level within HMRC. They have been told to shed jobs, under the auspices of “small government” is best fanaticism.
It doesn’t take too much effort to work out the origin of this “prime directive”.
The decision to lose jobs does not take into account how HMRC operates at the ground level. However, in order to comply with the “prime directive”, facts must be distorted and an alternative virtual reality must be created.
I can’t believe this is a rare occurrence under neo-liberal cult doctrine.
At some later date the true cost of this ridiculous course of action will come to light!
so how is it they can remove debt management jobs from several sites & of vol exit packages to bribe people into going then the next thing we hear is they are farming debt collection out to private debt collection agencys ? How secure will that be how does it fit with Data protection will they all sign the official secrets act ?