My thanks to a loyal reader. who has given me a heads up that on Thursday 12th Nov at 11am the HMRC call centres will fall silent.
All calls in will be shut off for an hour, while local managers deliver a simultaneous message to all HMRC staff about further redundancies.
Here is Lin Homer's message as posted on the HMRC intranet:
Message from Lin: Thursday's announcements
On Thursday, we will be announcing the next step in Building
our Future, when we make simultaneous face-to-face announcements in every HMRC
office about our future locations.
I want to emphasise that what we’re planning is absolutely
necessary to ensure that HMRC modernises, both in what we do and in how we do
it. We’ll be able to deliver better public services, and better careers for our
people, at lower cost for the taxpayer.
This isn’t just about bricks and mortar - it’s an
opportunity to invest in our workforce and your skills, so we’re ready to face
the challenges that will come five, ten and even 20 years down the road. And
because of the way our estates contract works, we’ll lose this opportunity for
at least 15 years if we don’t act now.
There will be a lot to absorb on the day, so I want to
provide some information ahead of the announcements which I hope will help to
explain what is happening.
Why we are doing this
As we have said in Building our Future, our aim is to bring
you together in big, modern Regional Centres, equipped with the digital
infrastructure and training facilities we need to make HMRC an even more
highly-skilled organisation, fit for the demands of the 21st century.
We are committing to Regional Centres serving every region
and nation in the UK, with skilled and varied jobs and development
opportunities, while also ensuring that jobs are spread throughout the UK.
At present, some 60,000 of us are scattered throughout 170
offices across the country, many of which are a legacy of the 1960s and 1970s.
These range in size from sites of around 6,000 full time equivalent roles at
one end of the scale, to fewer than ten at the other.
The fact is that we have too many expensive, isolated and
outdated offices, and we are spread too thinly across the country. This makes
it difficult for us to collaborate, modernise our ways of working, provide the
types of facilities you have a right to expect and to invest in our digital
infrastructure.
Bringing us together in Regional Centres will change that,
and it will enable people to develop careers up to senior levels, as well as
support the growth of specialist teams with links to local universities.
We expect the majority of you to be working in a Regional
Centre by the time we complete the transition which, as William said in his
update in September, will take ten years or more. Although some of us will
start seeing changes much sooner than that - beginning next year.
What happens on Thursday
On Thursday, managers will gather teams and groups together
– in open-plan areas, meeting rooms or larger spaces – to tell you what our
plans are for Regional Centres, and what the implications are for your office.
The managers making announcements are your local managers,
and they will be supported by senior leaders and by HR representatives, who
will help to answer the immediate questions that you might have.
This will be supplemented on Thursday with the following
information to be
published on the intranet:
•a Newsroom announcement about our plans nationally
•detailed information on the plans for each region, with
short presentations showing what is happening and when
•in-depth information on how we will manage the transition
over the next ten years, including Q&A on a range of HR policy and likely
questions that you'll want to know answers to.
We will also have HR support, although the impacts on any
individual may be very personal and will be addressed through one-to-ones with
your manager ahead of any changes directly affecting you – as is the standard
practice for all workforce announcements.
What we will be announcing
What we are announcing on Thursday – as we promised we would
– is the next step of our transformation. We’ll set out our long-term plans for
Regional Centres, and the detail of what it means for every office in HMRC. We
will be telling you which cities we have chosen for Regional Centres, but
generally not the precise location, since in most cases we still have to secure
the property.
We will also be setting out the timeline for how offices are
affected. The process of moving to new Regional Centres will begin in 2016,
although we do not intend to close any offices in 2016 that haven't already
been announced.
In fact, we will give at least a year's notice of any office
closures, and for some people this could be five to ten years away. When we
announce our formal intention to close an office, as we always do we'll hold
formal consultations involving you and the Departmental Trade Unions.
In short, we will give you as much information – and advance
notice – as possible to help you to understand how our plans affect you and
what your choices are.
How we will manage the transition
How we make these changes is as important as what they are.
So, just as we set out a number of principles for how we would select Regional
Centre locations, we have also agreed a set of principles for how we will
manage the transition and the impacts on you.
•We will minimise job losses by keeping as many people as
possible and expect people to travel or do different work
•While we need to continue to become smaller, we will
minimise redundancies wherever possible
•We will keep a limited number of Transitional Sites, which
will enable some people to work there for between five and ten years. Where we
can, we will move people to offices that are staying open longer
•We will consider everyone’s individual circumstances and
take them properly into account when making individual decisions through one-to-ones
that will cover individuals’ opportunities, choices and careers
•We will be honest, tell you as soon as we can and give you
as much notice as possible to help you to consider your own choices and make
your own plans.
We have established Regional Implementation Groups, led by a
local senior leader, to support the process. These will seek to ensure that
your thoughts on local issues and concerns are heard and understood as we
develop our detailed implementation plans.
We want to tap into your local knowledge to make sure that
we’ve considered everything that we need to, whether it’s travel options or
ways of working. We’ll also be asking for your view on how we can best support
you and your colleagues through these changes.
Finally, I want to repeat that what we are planning is
absolutely necessary to ensure that HMRC modernises, both in what we do and in
how we do it, so that we can both deliver better careers for our people and
better public services.
Creating modern Regional Centres, with a mix of professions,
operations and corporate services, will enable people to build careers up to
SCS level, without having to move around the country to get experience and get
a promotion. And they will be better places to work than much of our current
estate, which we all know isn’t up to scratch.
Thursday’s announcements will be a big event for everyone,
and we know that for some it will be difficult – including local managers
making the announcements. There will be a lot to take in, and I want to assure
you that there will be a lot of time to take it in. We will give you as much
information and support as we can – not just on Thursday, but in the days,
weeks, months and years that follow.
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