This has just been announced:
Lin Homer has announced today that she is to leave HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in April, after more than four years as Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary and a public service career spanning 36 years.
I'll ignore all the puff in the press release that followed. This is good news for HMRC: Homer has not been a success. A successor who demanded root and branch reform might be. I will await any announcement with curiosity, but not much hope.
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Judging by what I’ve read elsewhere, this lady is a bit of wrecking ball of the public services she has managed. And yes – I can think of male equivalents so I’m not just being sexist.
I fully expect her to find a job in the private sector – perhaps in a new company probably set up to fill in one of the gaps in service that she created whilst at the helm of the public sector functions she hollowed out whilst in post. I would not be surprised to see Government work outsourced to her new employment (perhaps).
Again, this is market making from the inside and Homer (like other men and women before her) will be feathering her own nest as she does so.
Perhaps even Lin Homer couldn’t bring herself to work with Angela Knight on tax simplification, Richard. And who can blame her.
But talking of the awful Knight, her appointment indicates in which direction this government will go when seeking a replacement for Homer. Someone even worse (eg. even more in the pocket of big business and the 1%.
Oh yes
Richard, I think you should apply for the job. Get the gap closed.
Chance of me getting it?
Zero
One is tempted to speculate that they might offer it to you – knowing that it would shut you up, and that the culture change you’d try and bring to HMRC would bring to mind the adage that when you are up to your ar*e in alligators it is hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp 🙂
I think the chance I would be offered this is 0%
If I was a betting person I would even bet on it
I’m not a betting person
BBC take on her ‘performance’ in both HMRC and Border Agency is interesting: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35281978.
Interesting may be the right word
Don’t forget her sterling work at Birmingham city council & Department for Transport !
And the Borders Agency
They had to shut it
Richard, any root and branch reform will have to wait until 2020 as there is an ongoing root and branch reform (closure of 137 tax offices to be replaced by 13) to take care of before then.
The new CEO should review whether that is wise
And stop it
I’m pretty sure the new CEO will be another nodding dog to the treasury!
I refer to my earlier comments about “Common Purpose” and the UK Column – a link to UK column’s website is attached, which may be of interest.
http://www.ukcolumn.org/
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/leadership-training-common-purpose
I don’t think you can dismiss them out of hand as “tin foil hat” wearers
I wonder if she waited to announce this until after the New Year’s Honours list had been published ! Probably intended to go earlier but was promised an award if she stayed on. Or is that being cynical?
Deeply cynical
Appropriately, I am sure
Got the `honour` for agreeing to go early more like. She doesn’t reach the normal civil service retirement age until 2017.
I’m more interested in where she leaves TO.
Yes indeed!
That is a good question.
She leaves a much diminished Department, with lots of tax offices closed and the destruction of most of the rest now set in stone in the “Building our Future” plan.
Gone before these ludicrous plans unravel.
But the rest of Excom are just as guilty. I suspect a criteria for the appointment of the new CE will be a commitment to withdraw the HMRC presence from most of the country. The complete abandonment of Norfolk is shockingly close.
“Gone before these ludicrous plans unravel.”
Standard practice amongst members of the management movement at every level. Introduce a scheme which appears to promise (short term) cost savings on the spreadsheet; get a reward from this in the form of promotion or a more lucrative move to another organisation; and leave other people to clear up and deal with the resulting shambles which ends up costing more than the original savings. Except those costs get transferred and hidden elsewhere so they don’t appear to show on the simplistic spreadsheet model used to assess performance and progress.
For the Lin Homer’s and wannabe Lin Homer’s of this world organisations such as the City Council, The Border Agency, HMRC etc are merely temporary fiefdoms for their own self aggrandisement. Transitory stops on the way to something more lucrative. Parton a career path for those who do not have friends, only opportunities. They never see and finish a job to its conclusion because that would mean staying too long in one place.
It is not just equality but also quality that such people disdain.
Absolutely correct, this happened frequently in HMRC – some manager would have a “good” idea – then get promoted because of it – and not be there to pick up the pieces when the “good” idea turned out not to be so good in reality