Stephen Hardwick Leaves HMRC

 

My thanks to a loyal reader who posted a comment yesterday alerting me to the fact that Stephen Hardwick (Communications Director initially appointed on a temporary basis in 2011) has left HMRC.

His LinkedIn profile implies he has not yet found a new role:

Director of Corporate Communications

Company Name HM Revenue & Customs

Dates Employed Sep 2011 – May 2017

Employment Duration 5 yrs 9 mos

Location London, United Kingdom

I advised the Executive Committee and Board on communications and reputation in a Department with 65,000 staff and annual revenues of £537 billion from 49 million individuals and 5.4 million businesses. I was a member of the Executive Committee, a broadcast spokesperson and represented HMRC at cross-government forums.

I led 300 staff in media, social media, internal communications, marketing, design, stakeholder relations, corporate publications, sustainability, and HMRC’s Building our Future engagement programme. I managed a budget of up to £20 million a year and was HMRC’s environment champion.

Key achievements:

- repositioned HMRC as a transparent, confident and effective organisation, robustly handling controversies over customer service, tax avoidance by multinationals and international data leaks through proactive media and stakeholder engagement

- influenced senior leadership decision making, advising both on strategy and operations, to ensure the effective delivery of HMRC’s objectives, while protecting its reputation

- transformed HMRC’s approach to employee engagement, creating a compelling narrative and establishing a programme of leader-led face-to-face events. Since April 2014 we engaged 65,000 staff in 2,200 events to discuss HMRC's vision, and in November 2015 involved 1,600 managers to make simultaneous face-to-face announcements about our location strategy

- restructured communications, integrating the corporate centre and business lines, rationalising the structure, defining the scope of authority and accountabilities, and significantly reducing cost and headcount

- developed a campaigns-based integrated communications strategy, directly aligned to HMRC’s business priorities and objectives, covering all aspects of communications and engagement, with clear measurement and evaluation

- improved communications professionalism, pioneering communications evaluation and leading cross-government capability improvement projects.

His Twitter feed says he is "funemployed":

I've not yet got the hang of funemployment. Day 1 and I've just completed my 2016-17 Self Assessment tax return. I have a 60p refund due.

— Stephen Hardwick (@stevehardwick) May 8, 2017

Did he fall, or was he pushed?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

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Homer's Note In The Telegraph

Lin Homer's note to staff telling them about their forthcoming redundancies, has been picked up by The Telegraph.

I wonder if Hardwick will be putting his head above the parapet again?

Oh, hang on a minute, I see that he has:

 "I'm sorry to have to correct you again, Harriet. 

HMRC's operating budget was £3.26 billion last year - less than a tenth of the figure you have quoted. It was reduced by 25 per cent in the 2010 Spending Review and by another five per cent in the 2013 Spending Review, although we have been given £1 billion of the savings back over four years to invest in tackling tax evasion and avoidance, fraud and error. Using those savings we secured an extra £23.9 billion in compliance revenues last year and an extra £20.7 billion the year before.

You have also compounded your innuendo of last week, by now suggesting that our CFO is leaving as a result of an "accounting glitch". This is as untrue this week as it was last week."

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Communications Problems

Bloomsbury has published its latest "HMRC customer satisfaction survey" and it is ironic that, despite Stephen Hardwick's (HMRC's Communication's Director) very vocal communication with the Telegraph the other day, taxpayers have expressed increasing frustrations with regard to trying to communicate with HMRC.


As per The Economic Voice, Bloomsbury notes on the plus side that the annual satisfaction survey showed an improvement in taxpayers’ perception of HMRC’s trustworthiness, honesty and integrity, as well as in its effectiveness in protecting personal and business information; ie 65% of accountants and 79% of SMEs surveyed regarded HMRC as trustworthy, up from just 61% and 74% in the previous year. The proportion of people saying that they feel HMRC acts with honesty and integrity has also increased (74% of accountants now believed HMRC acts honestly, up from 68% in 2012/13, while trust from taxpayers remained consistently high at 73% over the last two years).

However, there was a decrease in the perception that HMRC is better at collecting tax than repaying it. This year, only 41% of taxpayers and 36% of SMEs believed this to be the case, down from 59% and 41% respectively in 2010/11.

Additionally, the survey found that accountants, SMEs and individual taxpayers are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the ‘ease of getting in touch with HMRC’.

Only 70% of SMEs think HMRC was easy to contact, down from 80% in 2009/09, similarly, just 63% of individual taxpayers thought HMRC to be easily contactable, down from 75% in 2008/09.

The survey also found that fewer individual taxpayers, accountants and SMEs consider HMRC to be communicating effectively, and keeping them adequately informed of the progress of their query. A record low proportion of accountants, just 51%, felt that HMRC keep them informed, falling from 63% in 2008/09. Just 74% of SMEs feel HMRC keeps them adequately up-to-date, down from 82% in 2008/09.

Over to you Stephen!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance




HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Stephen Hardwick Lashes Out At The Telegraph

Last week a loyal reader noted that Simon Bowles (CFO of HMRC) was leaving HMRC.

The Telegraph, after I tweeted their City Diary Editor Harriet Dennys the article, duly mentioned it on Sunday and went on to imply that his departure was linked to the 5 million clusterfuck.

Enter Stephen Hardwick (HMRC's Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs - who was initially appointed only on a temporary basis in 2011), who penned a pithy response in the comments section; and I quote:

"I'm the Comms Director at HMRC. Let me separate fact from insinuation.

First, as we told Harriet Dennys, our Finance Chief informed our CEO a long time ago that he had decided to leave on his sixth anniversary, but we only announced it this week because that's when his six months' notice begins. Simple, really.

Second, he's a permanent senior civil servant. He's not on a contract, so the "not seeking to renew his contract for another three-year stint" is tosh. He could stay as long as he likes.

Third, the alleged "botched 5.5 million payments", as Harriet knows full well, is the process that the PAYE system has gone through for the last 60 years, when any discrepancies between what tax has been paid by employees and what they owe are sorted out. This usually occurs because someone has changed jobs, had a pay rise, got a benefit or something which hasn't been notified to HMRC during the year. With Real Time Information, the size of these discrepancies will reduce - provided we get the right information from employers - but there's always likely to be the need to reconcile people's tax accounts at the end of the year. Oh, and our latest best estimate is 18-20,000 incorrect notices were sent out in September, not 100,000. And none of this operational stuff comes under the Chief Finance Officer.

Finally, HMRC brought in record revenues last year - £506 billion - to pay for our nation's public services, so however much we might make mistakes from time to time (no organisation is infallible), we're doing very well at the core job. And we achieved this while keeping within a shrinking budget. This budget stuff is what our Finance Chief is responsible for and he has done it brilliantly for the past five and a half years. He will be sorely missed when he goes."

Hardwick learned his trade as a journalist and political adviser to the deputy head of the Labour Party, so the word "tosh" and firing from the hip comes naturally.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Second Annual Conference

HMRC's second annual conference about to start. Holding ourselves to account for our performance and setting out our future. #HMRCconf

— Stephen Hardwick (@stevehardwick) July 17, 2014

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Information Commissioner Investigates HMRC

The information commissioner has launched an inquiry into the way that HMRC's criminal investigations unit obtained and used personal information belonging to the family of Osita Mba, a revenue solicitor, and his wife, Claudia.

Documents sent to the information commissioner's office show that in October last year one of Mr Mba's managers forwarded his and his wife's address and four contact telephone numbers to an officer in HMRC's criminal investigations unit.

In December 2011 I wrote:

"Osita Mba, a solicitor with HMRC who turned whistleblower on HMRC's deal with the giant vampire squid (Goldman Sachs), is facing disciplinary proceedings (possibly dismissal and prosecution) for telling the National Audit Office (NAO) and two parliamentary committees about his concerns over the deal.

Mr Mba has worked for HMRC for four years, and apparently has knowledge of the vampire squid deal.

 

Mr Mba made the disclosure to the NAO and parliament under whistleblowing legislation which, theoretically, is meant to protect whistleblowers from prosecution etc.

It seems that HMRC think otherwise, and have launched an inquiry into Mr Mba's conduct. He has been barred from entering his office at Westminster unless he has a personal escort from his line manager, and has been summoned to a meeting."

HMRC's criminal investigations unit can examine tax and telephone records as part of its inquiries. It can also apply to intercept post, emails and telephone calls.

The Guardian reports that the information commissioner's office has given HMRC 28 days to explain how its criminal investigations unit obtained the numbers and why it is not in breach of the Data Protection Act.

It will be interesting to read their explanation.

I have warned many times on this site before about the dangers of giving more power to HMRC, this issue highlights why my warning should be heeded.

I am not alone in being concerned, the disclosure has caused concern among MPs on the Commons public accounts committee who say an ongoing criminal inquiry into Mba and his wife is heavy-handed and wrong.

Why are HMRC out to get Mr Mba?

It seems that HMRC blames Mr Mba for the demise of Dave "Jack" Hartnett.

Stephen Barclay, a committee member, said:

"This is a concerning development. We have taken a very close interest in a whistleblower who we regard as having provided information of public interest to parliament. Clearly we will need to see the details but there is a sense of mistakes being compounded with further mistakes."

HMRC have for the moment declined to comment.

However, they cannot remain silent forever and have to answer the information commissioner's questions.

Stephen Barclay advises me that there are two PAC sessions on HMRC on 26/27th of this month. It will be interesting to see what is unearthed.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise



Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Homer Speaks - HMRC The Three Pillared Triangle

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me the transcript of Lin Homer's (CEO of HMRC) recent introductory video chat with Stephen Hardwick (HMRC Communications Director).

Homer is pushing the point that she wants managers to listen, and for staff to tell her "how it is":

"..lots of staff also come to 100 Parliament street, and along with EXCOM colleagues, I’m on the forth floor, I’m there. And I think unless people are prepared to tell me what they think is stopping us from advancing then I don’t think we can make the best plans as senior leadership. 

What I do need them to be prepared to do is to give me ideas about solutions, as well as problems, so any time, they can get me on the email as well, share your thoughts and share your ideas."

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, take her at her word and tell her how it is; then let me know how you get on and whether management really do become more accessible.

Oh, and by the way, could someone please tell me what a three pillared triangle is?

"Transcript for Lin Homer introduction video with Stephen Hardwick

Stephen Hardwick

Hello I’m Stephen Hardwick, Communications Director, and I’m in St Mary’s House, Preston today to interview Lin Homer our new Chief Executive. Lin you’ve been in HMRC for about 3 weeks now, so how’s it going?

Well I’m really enjoying it. You’re going to have to ask everyone else what they think. But it’s given me a fantastic opportunity to get involved in the forward planning of the corporate plan but also to look at what we’ve achieved over the last year and to plan for the future. I’ve had a great chance to learn about what we do. 

I knew quite a lot about that anyway. I’d been involved in the capability review 2 years ago. 

In UKBA I’d been involved in taking some of the customs work on as responsibilities and of course I knew that we had 67,000 staff, but the scale of the organisation is still something really astonishing. 

Collecting in 1.2 billion of tax every day, paying out 109 million of benefits and credits, this is a complex and significant organisation and one of the things I’d like to do is not only to learn about it but to get people to talk more about this important job they do.

Stephen Hardwick

From your first impressions, what do you think we’re doing well and what do you think we could do better?

Well I think there are loads of things that are done really well, I think we have set ourselves very clear targets. With the introduction of pacesetter we’ve learnt to focus on performance delivery, but also to involve everyone in the organisation in that. And we’ve increasingly narrowed the gap on the tax yield, reduced our errors, so that less money is paid out that then has to be clawed back. So it’s just significant areas where I think we’re leading the way and where others have much to learn from us. 

But any good organisation wants to be better and I think what our front line would say is they want to deliver the very best for the public. So what I think we’ve got to do is really focus on how we can continue producing good customer service, how we can continue improving the tax that we get in, which after all is what all public services are based on, and how we can continue ensuring that we can be as cost effective and as efficient as possible. And those three pillars of our triangle are really important.

Stephen Hardwick

HMRC doesn’t currently get a very good press, do you think that’s deserved?

Well I think it’s almost inevitable that the department that collects taxes isn’t going to be universally loved all of the time. But I have to say I think we get a lot more of the negative and probably less of the positive than we should. And as I say I think one of the answers there is that we’ve got to be more prepared to talk about what we do well, hold out our improvements well, whilst being non defensive about the areas we still want to be better in. 

And I think that requires all of us as senior managers to get out there and talk about the business, including rebutting things that need rebutting. But I really think it also needs every member of staff to be a little bit less modest, a little bit prepared to talk about the things that they do well and for all of us to remind people that public services are founded on us getting the tax in.

Stephen Hardwick

HMRC has been going through a period of upheaval since we were formed and re structuring and we’ve got the lowest staff engagement scores in the civil service, so what are your internal priorities Lin?

Well I think we’ve got a big responsibility to continue driving improvements forwards. Obviously for me very sad to arrive just as Lesley died but I’m determined that we’re going to build on the improvements that she started and follow those through. That’s what she would want, that’s what lots of staff have said to me and we’ve got a great base of operational efficiency already promised, begun to deliver, that ministers have great confidence in us so we’re going to take that forward. If we can get that cost base right then what that means is that we can deliver more for the country in these difficult times. 

In addition I think we’ve got to keep pushing up the tax yield. Every public service needs us to do that and we are doing extremely well in a number of areas but the more we can ensure that the tax comes in at the right level and at the right time, then all public services are safer. And not withstanding those pressures of course we’ve got to continue to build on the customer service work we’re doing. Fantastic that the call centres are answering twice as many calls as they did two or three years ago but I know that the call centre people want to go further, they want to answer more calls and they want to answer them more quickly so those are good examples of where we can give ourselves some aspirations to do better on customer service.

I think all of us want to come to work with a bounce in our step, we want to work for an organisation that’s valued and we want to feel valued as part of that organisation. Again I think there’s been some fantastic work since I last looked at the organisation two years ago, and although we started from a low base our engagement scores are going up so I want us to build on that. That really requires us as senior managers to listen to what people are saying to us and it requires staff to have confidence in us that we want to be better and to work with us on that journey. 

I’d like people to be thinking about their answers to the survey last year, and the answers that we got from that survey as well as the information we’ve got from our self assessment on the capability review, will give us an agenda for improvement as we go forwards. And bit by bit, year by year, we’re going to turn this into the organisation that the public want from us but that we want to work in.

Stephen Hardwick

While you’ve been out and about, you’ve asked people to come up and talk to you and tell you what they think about HMRC. Do you really want people to tell you how it is?

Yes I do. 

There’s no point me sitting in an ivory tower, and I’m going to be trying to get out regularly. At the moment I’m out on a visit once a week but lots of staff also come to 100 Parliament street, and along with EXCOM colleagues, I’m on the fourth floor, I’m there. And I think unless people are prepared to tell me what they think is stopping us from advancing then I don’t think we can make the best plans as senior leadership. 

What I do need them to be prepared to do is to give me ideas about solutions, as well as problems, so any time, they can get me on the email as well, share your thoughts and share your ideas. And again today in Preston Paul’s already given me a number or real, recent examples of front line staff coming up with things that have made the business here better and that’s what we need more of, and that’s what we as senior managers need to encourage.

Stephen Hardwick

You seem to have a really approachable and personable style, is that the sort of style you’d like for HMRC as an organisation?

Yes but I think it’s important that we’re professional and credible as well and I think what we’ve got to do is show people that they are right to place their trust in us. And I think what we’ve got to show our staff is that we mean to continue investing in them so of course we should be personable and accessible but we should be highly professional and highly trustworthy as well. If we get that right we can all hold our heads up high.

Stephen Hardwick

Being chief executive of HMRC is a really demanding job so how do you relax Lin?

I find work enjoyable most of the time I mean I’ve been lucky enough to do some great jobs, in demanding organisations, but you know doing things that matter to the public is quite a lot of reward in its own right and I do enjoy my work, so first of all I don’t go home heavily stressed. My family would say I’m a bit of a workaholic so don’t ask them for any advice, but I love family time, I’ve got three grown up daughters I still see a lot of, but then the boring lovely things of gardening and reading, they’re also great pleasures for me.

Stephen Hardwick

Lin, thank you very much."

Tax does have to be taxing.

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To find out more, please use this link Taxwise



Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's £100K Giveaway

Despite Stephen Hardwick's assertion that penalties are the correct way to encourage people to submit their tax returns and pay their taxes on time:

"We use penalties purely to encourage on-time filing."

It seems that others are willing to think outside of the box, and use other means to encourage on time filing and early payment of tax liabilities.

Cameron's Behavioural Insight Team have proposed that anyone who files their tax return, two months early, could have a chance at a £100,000 prize.

Let's see if this ever gets off the drawing board then!

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Hang On A Minute!

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me a copy of an article posted on the HMRC intranet last week by The Director Corporate Communications, Stephen Hardwick.

It is on a strand called 'Hang on a Minute!" which basically answers criticism from the press on various HMRC issues.

Here it is:

"The Independent: 

In an article headlined 'Exposed: Taxman's illegal war against Britain's small businesses' , The Independent claimed HMRC is deliberately using late-payment fines to generate extra revenue. 

HMRC's Reply: 

HMRC does not use small business penalties to boost revenue. We do not want penalty payments either from businesses or individuals. We use penalties purely to encourage on-time filing and to be fair to the vast majority of taxpayers who file on time. 

HMRC supports small businesses as shown by the £7.71 billion of small business tax we have deferred to help with cash flow problems. 

We treat all taxpayers the same irrespective of their size and nature."

Well then, I leave it to you (my loyal readers) to express your opinions about the accuracy (or otherwise) of the above.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"