HMRC is doing its level best to reduce its cost base, and save us money.The post-room at Fountain Court (the HMRC office in Middlesbrough) is being closed down, consequently letters issued by staff are not being picked up by the Royal Mail.
Therefore all letters issued from Fountain Court are now sent to Benton Park View (the Wearside HMRC office) to be placed in envelopes and issued from there.
In other words, a letter written in Middlesbrough is driven 40 miles by courier to be put in an envelope and posted.
Great!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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The mail from our office has been making it's merry way up to Benton Parkview for sometime now. Wonder how many days it hangs around up there before someone packs it? They mustn't be very good at it, a few people have told me that they have had someone else's letter in their envelope.
ReplyDeleteThis is not new to HMRC staff, its been going on for some time... by the way Benton Park Views on Tyneside not Wearside.
ReplyDeleteFor all the millions and millions poured into ICT products at HRMC by government at taxpayers expense, and no-one ever thought about remote printing.
ReplyDeletei.e. hit the print key in Fountain Court and it prints in Benton Parkview.
It really is taxing.....
I can confirm that this is happening in Swansea too. We send our post to Cardiff to be issued. Also, the post sent to us in Swansea is redirected by Royal mail to Cardiff where it is sent to Pontypool to be worked. They don't have enough people to work it all so they send it to - you guessed it - Swansea, havefrordwest and Aberystwyth.
ReplyDeleteA Whitehall farce has not got a patch on this... what a farking shambles!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 2021 on 9/9: it will be interesting to see if your comment makes it onto the main blog... :)
ReplyDeleteIf you Google fountain court Middlesbrough, you'll find that it's one of the offices earmarked for closure this year (which is itself something you can moan about ad nauseum...). Does that not suggest that this postal arrangement is a temporary measure as part of the phased withdrawal from the building?
ReplyDeleteIf readers log onto www.pcssswwales.co.uk they can read the sorry shambles about post in SW Wales as well.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work.
Post is indeed sent to BPV ( Tyneside is further away from Fountain court than Wearside ) Originally post for Shackleton ( Sunderland) Cheviot, Weardale ( Washington ) Tyne Bridge Tower ( Newcastle ) all went to Fountain Court to be distributed -- that made just as much sense as the current shambles
ReplyDeleteThis does all assume of course, that it isn't actually cheaper to drive the post and process it centrally, rather than run two post rooms and pay for two separate collections.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. Maybe not. You could always do a Freedom of Information request to find out. But then, fact-finding does tend to get in the way of a good rant.
How naive! Do you honestly think that a FOIA request would show HMRC up in a bad light? Answers on a postcard! Then again........... there are those with blinkers (big ones at that)
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 1920: well where do you think a large number of press articles criticising government departments get their information from? I believe this blog has even quoted information obtained in that way.
ReplyDeleteEventually (within 2 years tops) there will only be about half a dozen post rooms across the entire country for both outgoing and incoming mail - with private couriers ferrying the mail around between buildings in their little vans.
ReplyDeleteNow THAT will be a laff!!
Fountain Court is indeed earmarked for closure, however can anyone say when it will close? The date for the introduction of the new computer system has been put back at least three times, so anyone hoping for a courier service between sites to work out cheaper than running two postrooms had better hope it is sooner rather than later. Besides which, none of the postroom staff at Fountain Court have been laid off, so how much money can this system be saving? They're stil being paid.
ReplyDeleteI posted some P11d's and sent them by Royal Mail Special Delivery, so that I could track the delivery. Guess what, they were re-directed and the Royal Mail will not divulge the address where they were delivered to. HMRC and RM what a nonsense.
ReplyDelete