As several readers have already commented, next Tuesday is the HMRC dial in. This presents staff with an opportunity to raise issues that concern them with the "great and the good" of HMRC management.
My advice to those of you concerned about the closure of the enquiry centres is not to let this opportunity go to waste, and ensure that relevant searching questions are raised.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Errr...what's next in the pipeline, Boss?
ReplyDeleteErrr...have we still got a 5 year plan?
Errr...what was that about visions, values and customer service crap all about then?
Errr...our whiteboard has broken again, should we bother fixing it?
Errr...there is no-one left on our floor but me the yet system says I must hold a daily "hub" in order to compare outcomes to targets, and do we still have to line-up in the car park to sing the company song now the car park is 3 foot underwater?
Errr...I'm intrigued, what did you do before you ended up in the driving seat here at HMArsey... hello, hello, bugger, must have been cut off!
Can't wait to see how bad this pile of manure is by the time it oozes shoots.
ReplyDeleteGrow the business my @r$e, this is more akin to spraying Monsanto Weedkiller on your lawn in preference to cutting it.
The public {don't call them customers, please!} may think the service is bad now, just wait a while!
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ReplyDeleteToday's dial in with Ruth Owen was the worst dial in I have ever heard, the panel were contradicting each other over the payouts for Vol Exit amongst other things, it was clear the panel were not prepared for the questions put to them, but big praise for the emotional lady from Frome EC who had the guts to tell it like it was, give her honest opinion on the way she felt and made Ruth Owen feel 2 feet tall.
ReplyDeleteWhen the crap managers, not so many steps above the enangered species otherwise known as the AA grade are cleared out, which may be sooner than some of them have been planning for, then their complete and utter lack of spine and morals that they have long exhibited will be back to hit them hard.
ReplyDeleteThink on this, when the AA grade has gone and the AO grade is being decimated, who are next? Yep. all you EO/HO/SO "managers", hold on tight for a rough ride, you have not got a clue have you?
If HMRC are no longer planning on providing any form of service to their customers, I would be looking for a job with a future, private sector tax collection, bit like TV Licences, Road Tax, Parking, Civil Service payrolls and pension payments etc!
Exactly. You would think that in order to improve a broken system and save costs you would start where the big money is being spent…i.e the senior side of hmrc. But the fuckwits in charge decided to shaft the people on the lowest pay scale. The people who bust their balls on the front line, many for less that 15,000 a year. Its like when the discs were lost in 2005, none of the managers had the balls to stand up and take responsibility or show leadership. Instead an AO was crucified for the error instead.
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DeleteScrew you, you think only AO's and AA's work hard? There are plenty of people at every grade who have to work hard, hard work isn't reserved for those on the phones or doing worklists.
DeleteI'm sure u r right but I hav witnessed people at the very top who earn much more doin not very much........ie, not justifying their wage
DeleteI give it a year before HMRC is deemed unfit for purpose and broken into smaller departments. HM Revenue Collections and HM Revenue Enforcements. The current beast is too big and to be frank is run by useless muppets. Managers from the top to the frontline have no training and their technique is nothing short of bullying
ReplyDeleteThe plan seems to be to make the civil service a department and the current govt departments offices of it, so eventually DWP and HMRC etc will just become another section of "Civil Service".
DeleteThis is already happening with PMR, Gov.uk, civil service wide security passes etc, there will be no such thing as other govt departments.
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DeleteHistory will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
ReplyDeleteMartin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth133707.html#i70FCzHoQlFBftma.99
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ReplyDeleteEven if any smart assess at AO or O grade think they're going to be ok. They will inherit the crap left behind by the recently vacated AAs. On top of their own load. Any moaning and you will be hauled into the meeting room. Everyone needs to stick together. When they get rid of a bulk of the AAs they will begin to grind the AO's and Os down. The sickness levels will go through the roof in 2014.
DeleteCentralisation? Yes of course there will be centralisation. WE WILL ALL BE CENTRALISED INTO THE LOCAL DOLE OFFICE. IF IT IS STILL OPEN.
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ReplyDeleteOur LM spends most of her day staring at an empty inbox, pretending that she's busy. The only time she's animated is when she's trying to avoid taking a telephone call from an irate 'customer', or 'delegating' her work to the rest of us.
DeleteWe've got her twin working at our office
DeleteMost line managers if you ask them a question go into their office, shut the door and ring another line manager who rings another line manager and they wait and wait until someone has the guts to make a decision.
DeleteThe one who made the decision then gets a face to face meeting with their manager and told off for making the decision they did.
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Deletei had a line manager at HO who was so useless there had to be an O out of the team acting full time as an unpaid HO to make up for the useless HO's lack of output.
DeleteIt took sometime before the higher management realised why the O grade targets were consistently only just scraping by or just missing.
This HO was a waste of space and some of the AA's would have left the individual standing if given a chance. Of course, the O that was doing the HO work was a consistently top performer.
And when the line managers use the whiteboards as rafts , there will be no room for anyone else.......
ReplyDeleteThe most ineffective managers are those that came from the former Inland Revenue, although to be fair the former Customs mob had their fair share of prats as well, but numbers were less! Former IR staff were promoted from pure clerical into total management positions and it was like watching rabbits caught in car headlamps, they didn't have a clue then and don't now.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for the remaining staff, but the best thing that HMG could do now is to start from scratch, bite the bullet, it might cost short term, but long term, would pay dividends in efficiency savings if nothing else. Frankly it could not be any worse than the current system. Look at the example that Homers predecessor set!
The worst bullies though were those emanating from the former Investigation cess pit of Customs by far. Their disregard for the Law of The Land had become endemic long before the various debacles including London City Bond and other cases resulting in Senior Investigation managers being referred to in Crown Court as unreliable witnesses!
Their excuse for what the opressed felt was that it was all about robust management - utter b@[[@ck$, many of this lot were borderline psychopaths although to be fair they were never afraid to make a decision when required.
So this lot all got mixed up when HMRC was spawned and they have seen off a number of Chairmen ever since, mind you, their former Investigation boss left as well, and he was from the Customs side of things.
All in all, a resultant mess that no longer holds the respect it should have amongst its contempories or the professionals it deals with in the Judicial, Legal and Accountancy professions.
The only ones to benefit from this disaster, those that do not wish to pay their taxes and contribute to society, whether by avoidance or evasion.
Dear Hmrc a lot of money can be saved by getting rid of the technical Band O's who do nothing but yap yap yap. There r just one or two gems who actually work.
DeleteI think a major problem, as many have already pointed out is that many at Officer grade in my experience reached that grade by arse licking. They simply were not qualified for those positions. This was'nt so bad before the merger, becuase it was kind of kept in house so to speak. As an AA with Customs and Excise I saw some of these people start to cry their lamps out when a nasty balls of a manager from the former IR asked them to complete a project. The problem for a lot of the arse licks at whatever grade is that when the merger happened their comfy worlds were fragmented and the normal escape routes were ended as some nasty fucker from the Inland Revenue was now in charge. I don't mean this about all Officer of Higher Officer grades. Obviously some had reached those grades through years of experience and hard work. My memory was of VAT insurance officers cracking up at the changes made to how they calculated VAT. It worked for decades and then a pack of muppets screwed the whole thing up.
ReplyDeleteI am aware of a number of former C&E people with the same former C&Emanager at SO level, they maintained protective records and files on the f#cker over many years, this was not a bad idea given the f#ckers well known and proven reputation for bullying and harrassment over decades. Believed the individual may have held the double record for the number of complaints and grievances against one manager in the history of HMRC and also the sheer number of staff "fleeing" the individuals command, robust management again?
ReplyDeleteSome of the people who remained managed to retain their sanity and get out from under this tw@t of an SO and ended up promoted to the same level, or higher. Hopefully they will not emulate the SO motherf#r and at least have treated their staff with respect.
The greater management failing? They buried the history and failings in a series of different management chains over decades. The staff failings, along with PCS? Not enough people with the balls to stand up and say it as it was.
Its all academic unless it ever gets to court or the IPCC as the tw#t has left. The massive costs in taxpayers wasted money for double figure grievances, appeals, staff stress. illness. long-term absence and retraining for replacements, dont ask!
Just one manager in a useless department that has such failings with regard to staff welfare the word systemic is inadequate.
Will leave the informed readership to work out the background of the tw#t! It shouldn't be too difficult...
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ReplyDeleteThe whiteboards r so cheap the managers wud drown if they tried to use them as rafts. Cud always put them on the bonfire ( the whiteboards not the managers)! Most of the staff don't even giv a shit wot is on the board it's almost embarrassing to witness.
ReplyDeletei find it somewhat ironic that HMRC has had to ensure that the whiteboards are put together safely and securely to stop the damn things falling on the worshippers, and that they are so fecking dangerous they have yellow/black hazardous tape on the protuding legs. Of course, it doesnt take a genius to work out if you had allowed a bit more space you wouldnt have to place the boards where they can trip your workers up! Even had to point out that placing these things either side of the double door fire exit main route out of one office was dangerous, stupid and illegal - but what would you expect from this bunch of management nitwits?
ReplyDeleteAs for what they write on the boards, hah. for all the good it does they may as well write in ancient Greek! Watching the "faithful" being called to "hub" is one of the dreariest experiences of modern life.
The aftermath of the years of farce that HMRC has become is likely to be used in future as an example of how not to try and apply Japanese manufacturing principle to the UK Civil Service. At a time when good staff, let alone good managers are harder to obtain in a shrinking employment market HMG has well and truly allowed the worst of the managers to run the most difficult Government Department in history.
PCS......WHERE R U..?
ReplyDeleteSo what happened in the dial in?
ReplyDeleteIt was completely embarrassing Lin had lost her voice so they some other Excom took over Edward Troupe, who all the way through kept making unfunny comments such as "I am not Lin, I am doing an impression of her"etc, the usually cock ups with callers forgetting to unmute their phones etc.
DeleteIt was so engrossing I cannot remember anything that was asked.
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DeletePCS.......HELLO......ANYBODY THERE?
ReplyDeletePlease somebody sack the laziest pigshit of a line manager who talks all day and drinks coffee and replace her with the AA's. She's as flat as a pancake however much she tries to stick her chest out.......sorry getting personal..........as for knowing the job? She's been there 25 yrs and does sweet FA and this band O thinks HMRC OWES her a living..... More fool them
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion a BIG overhaul of line managers and technical band O's is needed. I bet 50% of them can be voluntarily exited.......
ReplyDeletePcs? Hello pcs?..... Nobody answering as they too busy propping up the FTA's in my opinion..........pcs? Pcs? Can I get a refund?.......
ReplyDeleteHave you tried contacting PCS instead of this blog? I don't think Ken works for PCS.
DeleteHe doesn't work for HMRC either
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DeleteKuthi da poosh
DeleteTues dial in? These top brass always lose their voice when people on the shop floor find their's............
ReplyDeleteIf LH is off sick will she be subjected to the pitiful sick absence procedures that the ordinary staff have to go thru which IMO is a breach of human rights of the ordinary staff. I really hope someone steps up and FINDS THEIR VOICE and takes it all the way to the top LEGALLY.
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