Seemingly, in the Prime Minister's world, staffing levels at HMRC have "increased":
“We have actually increased staffing levels at Revenue and Customs.”David Cameron came out with this nonsense when he was responding to a question from Labour MP Teresa Pearce.
Ms Pearce was highlighting something that loyal readers of this site know very well, namely that 10,000 staff are to be cut from HMRC despite the fact that hundreds of thousands more people are being brought into the tax system and the fact that is evident from issues wrt codings, call centre problems, letter delays etc etc that HMRC can't cope now let alone in the future.
How on earth the could the Prime Minister say something that is quite so obviously bollocks?
Channel 4 News have gamely tried to give him some wiggle room, they note that the Chancellor has allowed HMRC to spend £917M from the efficiency savings, as long as it promised to bring in an extra £7BN a year.
That spending will, according to the National Audit Office (NAO), reduce the real terms cut in running costs from 25% to 16.5% and limit job losses to 10,000 instead of a potential 19,000.
In other words the PM was saying that the reduced headcount is not as bad as it could have been.
Well then!
I leave it to my loyal readers to decide individually as to whether the PM was talking bollocks.
To my mind, and of course I am biased, I think that he was talking bollocks and that it is clear the politicians have no idea how bad things are going to become wrt HMRC and its interactions with the taxpaying voters!
Like it or not, HMRC (as is the NHS) is one of the few government agency that we all have to deal with. Therefore when things go wrong, and they will, people will quite rightly blame the government.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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all I hear from Revenue staff at the Call Centres is how much pressure they are under. Timed loo and tea breaks and how much they all hate it.
ReplyDeleteIt must be a soul-destroying job when you can never resolve anything more difficult than a code number.
They could always leave and get a job in the private sector, but that would mean a pay cut and paying a lot more for a half crap pension.
DeleteI guess they will just hang on in there after all.
And yes I do know how much call center staff get paid and how much someone doing a similar job in the private sector gets.
So the answer is........a race to the bottom, so that everyone has a shitty job?
Delete"They could always leave and get a job in the private sector"...........
You seem to know most things,so you'll clearly be aware of the job situation at the mo?
Total twunt.
I really wish those who come out with the 'get a job in the private sector' lark actually had the balls to say what they did themselves for a living, as well as their current circumstances.
DeleteTheir jobs are being out-sourced to to SHITEL they pay less money, the staff no rights and are not allowed to join a union. The sections are petitioned off so they cannot even talk to HMRC staff so things are inevitably going to get even worse. So in answer to Ken he is talking total bollocks
ReplyDeleteSeeing as we already get a crap service how will we notice any difference?
DeleteNo you don't. You parrot bollocks with the rest of the mouth breathers. I have to phone HMRC 6 OR 7 TIMES A DAY. Been doing this for a couple of years. No answer - twice. More than 10 minute wait -maybe a dozen times. 95% cals answered in under 2 minutes. Just my experience. You sound like another whinging prick.
Delete6 or 7 times a day, either your shite at your job or your getting worse service than your realise. Still it is nice to see the "care in the community" system working so well in your case.
Deleteanyone see the recent INtranet announcement on staffing figures for ESS?
ReplyDeleteAnyone care to explain how a 'business stream' that theoretically looks after a now shrinking estate and now doesn't do messenger/delivery or indeed the majority of estate related jobs (that now have to be done by staff whose jobs are actually looking after tax affairs) has managed to INCREASE its staffing?