My thanks to a loyal reader who alerted me to what Dave Hartnett has publicly promised HMRC staff what HMRC will do with the results of the forthcoming staff survey.
"Everything is fine in HMRC, it must be, you can't move for propaganda telling the staff it is so.
Keep repeating the same story often enough and even the unbelievable appears true.
(only partially quoted) Dave Hartnett said yesterday
'it's important to give you some public commitments, on behalf of Excom, ahead of the 2011 survey, which opens in just over a month's time.'
Phew, that must have been a too close for comfort call, when to print that?
BTW HMRC will
'Use the information you give us to improve working life here in the department.'!
BTW HMRC won't
'Use the survey result when deciding office closures or team moves.'!
'Use the data for anything other than improving working life here in HMRC.'!
Message to managers
'Excom colleagues and I will hold ourselves and our management teams accountable for the following commitments. Any departure from them will not be tolerated by me or any other senior leader within HMRC.
Furthermore I will actively support the proper investigation of any evidence of transgressions in line with HMRC's procedures governing such matters.
It is vital that we all behave in line with these common sense principles, and that we all agree to work together in this way without exception and in a way that is entirely consistent with our published leadership behaviours'!
HMRC will not
'Feed back on the data in any inappropriate way.'!
I have no hesitation in praising this new approach, has the top finally woken up to the "fiefdoms" below them?"
The fact that Hartnett has been forced to make such a public statement indicates that Excom are worried that they have lost the "faith" of their staff (no surprises there) and, more interestingly, that they do not trust their managers not to misuse the results.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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When are the men in white suits coming for Hartnett.
ReplyDeleteWhat? To move him to DLS' office?
ReplyDeleteI do think the proverbial must have hit the fan somewhere.
ReplyDeleteOn face value Hartnett and HMRC are to be applauded for finally starting to get a grip on things.
Never seen anything like this before, anywhere, Civil Service or the real world of commerce.
Is it me or is it a bit of an indictment?
What were those special measures imposed by cabinet Office?
Wonder what the staff survey will bring?
Maybe Dave is taking advantage of Dame Leslie's absence to say what he really thinks - as he is a longstanding Revenue man and must have some loyalty to the Department, whereas she was parachuted in from somewhere else
ReplyDeleteHartnett reminds me of Father Jack.
ReplyDeleteDRINK!!!
As an HMRC employee who has been fed this sort of bullcrap for longer than i care to remember i will believe it when i see it. A leopard doesn't change it's spots. If they really wanted to show the ymean business staff cuts would have been top of the agenda. Who else would let people go in a knee jerk to make cuts before realising they have let huge whafts of experienced staff go. If anything the only honourable thing to do would be for EXCOM to fall on their sword and resign (Without the inflated golden handshakes and benefits).
ReplyDeletei think you may find some staff were fingered for their responses in the last survey and one of the unions was going to withdraw support for completion rendering the survey results more useless than usual.
ReplyDeleteI believe both unions had issues with the threats that were made. It appears they actually listen when the FDA get upset about something.
ReplyDelete