My thanks to a loyal reader who pointed me to a report published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) which independently assesses police forces and policing across activity from neighbourhood teams to serious crime and the fight against terrorism – in the public interest.
The report was published on 11 June 2014, and is called Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs – recovery of proceeds of crime revisit.
Between September and December 2013, HMIC undertook a revisit to assess how well HMRC had implemented 15 recommendations in the 2011 report into its performance in addressing the recovery of the proceeds of crime from tax evasion and benefit fraud.
The reports makes grim reading for HMRC's directors and management:
"This revisit has found that progress has been slow. HMIC considers that HMRC has failed to adhere to and implement the 2011 report 's recommendations in a way HMIC would have expected.Only 3 out of 15 recommendations have been discharged!
Although HMRC had developed an action plan, there was a lack of effective governance to ensure that sufficient priority and focus was given to addressing these recommendations.
Contrary to HMRC's March 2013 action plan which stated that all recommendations had been 'closed', HMIC found that only three of the 15 recommendations have been discharged."
Yet HMRC happily lied by claiming in 2013 they had been closed.
May I ask what the fark are Excom doing, and why are their political masters not nailing their heads to coffee tables for this dismal performance?
HMIC twist the knife further:
"Between 2011 and 2013, HMRC had developed two strategic plans to improve criminal finances activity.In other words HMIC do not believe that HMRC has any form of effective leadership.
However, neither had brought about any tangible results and by the time of this revisit, neither was being pursued.
HMIC considers this a missed opportunity, as a robust strategy combined with strong leadership, could have brought about the required action in response to this recommendation."
Why did Homer get a £20K bonus, and why does she think that her performance was "very good"?
Why are HMRC's political masters sitting on their hands doing nothing about HMRC's performance and leadership?
Wake up people it's your taxes that are being wasted here!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Raises more questions e.g.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the point of HMIC undertaking the first inspection let alone the revisit? Seems like a complete waste of taxpayers money if having no effect.
Who is responsible for ensuring compliance with HMIC inspections and outcomes re HMRC?
Reading between the lines, as HMIC is obviously constrained by Political masters then the real state of affairs must be much worse?
Considering the amount of money lost to criminal action (let alone HMRC inaction, unless they are the same!) Then there is an almighty hole in the fence that the taxman is not policing, why?
"Joe Public" is about as switched on to POC implications as they are to most things, unsighted at best, couldn't care less at worst, despite the vast amounts of unrecovered money. HMIC provide the reports partly to inform the public and partly as evidence to, drive improvement in service to the public by various forces and HMRC.
So, what have they been doing since the implementation of POCA, knitting?
Maybe the simple truth is that despite all the announcements about 'closing the tax gap', 'punishing evasion' , 'fighting fraud' and deterring avoidance HMRC secretly recognises that it is never going to recover much of this money since it can't even collect much of the tax that is already assessed With something like £18 billion of existing tax liabilities in arrears even after a recent £3 billion debt write off the department probably feels it needs more liabilities on its books like a hole in the head.
ReplyDeleteThe simple truth about Homer is out at last, reportedly now facing up to 4 different enquiries re. her time at Allah Oh UKBA!
ReplyDeleteShe will be called upon to explain why she sanctioned the e.borders agreement with Ratheon?
As reported Daily Mail p.2 today.
Oh err, top performer? Mind the doors please...