Wednesday 20 July 2011

Qualified NAO Report III

Fail
Another day, another National Audit Office (NAO) report about HMRC.

Gosh, busy bees aren't they?

This particular report looks at Reducing Costs in HMRC

Unsurprisingly the NAO are of the view that "HMRC faces a significant challenge in securing a £1.6 billion reduction in running costs over the next four years, at the same time as increasing tax revenues, improving customer service and achieving reductions in welfare payments."

Quite!

"Reducing running costs by £1.6 billion over four years is a big challenge for HMRC. It is making progress but there is no contingency in its plans.

To achieve value for money, it needs to better define the service it is aiming for; improve its understanding of costs; and develop its implementation plan
."

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 20 July 2011.

This is polite "audit speak" for saying the HMRC is winging it and making things up as it goes along, hoping against hope that nothing goes wrong.

Impressive yes??

"HMRC’s cost reduction proposals involve much uncertainty."

Really?

"HMRC has made no allowance in its cost reduction plans for under-delivery or slippage, and currently has no reserve of proposals on which to draw."

A recipe for disaster!

Good luck to everyone working for HMRC, and good luck to the long suffering taxpayers.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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8 comments:

  1. They couldnt reduce their annual budget even after tens of thousands of people left.

    So how is the 103rd going to save £1.6 billion.

    If your in administration support or even front line, you may be politely asked to vacate your desk, along with the 10,000 over the next 2 or 3 years.

    Dont be expecting the muppets to look at it any other way. As the report states

    "there is no contingency in its plans"

    "It has not yet sufficiently defined the business performance and customer service it intends to achieve by 2015".

    "HMRC has made no allowance in its cost reduction plans for under-delivery or slippage, and currently has no reserve of proposals on which to draw".

    The 103rd rides out.

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  2. Maybe a small saving will be made from the dames announcement that she needs a few months off for a major operation - I wonder if she will hit the trigger points???

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  3. Dame Leslie Strap-On

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  4. Lets say HMRC has 200 offices left, shutting an office on average will save £160,000/yr
    so shutting 100 offices in a year
    would save £16,000,000 in year 1.
    But then they would only have half the offices and staff and still be 90% short of target savings and also be having to pull in an extra £7bn revenue over the 4 years.
    Does anyone else get the feeling that the math does not add up?

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  5. Quote from Kens original blogpost

    Good luck to everyone working for HMRC, and good luck to the long suffering taxpayers.


    Good luck indeed.

    The public happily waved goodbye to half the HMRC workforce under the misapprehension of 'waste'. Only to find the workforce drop had been massaged by consultants who were/are paid 10x more than their actual worth to teach granny revenue to suck HMRC eggs.

    "Bye bye evil taxman" said the public sticking their middle finger up when half the workforce left.

    Using the logic applied by several posters on the site that cannot seem to separate the government from the civil service. The general public were complicit in this as they were offered the idea of an improvement by the Labour govt to reduce 'waste' as they so eloquently put it and they accepted it.

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  6. @20 July 2011 20:50

    That created an image that I hope disappears outside of my head quite soon.

    Maybe that is what the surgery is for?

    Sorry, maybe it's really serious but this woman has lost any sense of compassion from members of staff when she issues 'guidance' that the ass-kissing management take to mean they can harass someone in remission from cancer in order to get them off the payroll.

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  7. 20 July 2011 21:13

    One thing you missed from your calculations. Closing an office doesn't mean HMRC stop paying for it. I know of two offices that are being paid for 2 years after they left.

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  8. Yes,

    But that was "accounted" for under PPI and written off the books under labour so it doesn't get included.
    Still has to be paid though.
    Oh yes, and what happens at the end of the PPI contract>
    Is there a "sell-back" clause or something similar that Private Eye picked up on some time ago now?

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