Disconnected

The question posed:

Is HMRC fit for purpose?

Judging from the conclusion of "The Capability Review" the answer would appear to be "No!".

The Capability Review was undertaken by the cabinet secretary, and head of the Home Civil Service, Sir Gus O'Donnell. He reported that HMRC will meet its efficiency savings, but will miss seven of its ten service-level targets.

Middle managers are unclear about senior management's vision for the department's future. Only 17% of middle managers think senior management is effective at leadership.

Quote:

"The department needs to address a disconnect..about the ability of HMRC to set direction."

The report notes that a restructuring of HMRC's management lines and responsibilities is required.

A complicated 'matrix-management' structure at the department and extensive use of sub-committees has 'diffused accountability', leading to an increase in risk of errors being made further down the organisation.

Basically, no one knows that they are doing or meant to be doing.

It is hardly surprising that HMRC lose things!


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Sauce For The Goose

This being the season of goodwill to all, it is refereshing to see that the HMRC is being served a generous portion of sauce for both the goose and the gander.

Dave Partridge, the Chief Operating officer from the Revenue and Customs prosecutions office, has been fired following concerns that his wife had been employed by the department as a consultant.

Partridge had his contract terminated in August after an inquiry into the employment of his wife, Michaela.

Britain, being such and open democracy, is only now learning of the story as a result of questions being asked in parliament. Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC), said that Mrs Partridge or her company had been paid £97,907 since her husband was appointed in September 2005.

The RCPO is in charge of prosecuting tax fraud and other major criminal cases, including drug smuggling and money laundering.

Bacon has called for MPs to investigate the RCPO accounts, and to look into propriety at HM Revenue and Customs after new figures suggested that the department was responsible for almost half of the fraud committed across all government departments.

It seems that 190 cases of fraud were reported in HMRC in the last financial year. They were worth more than £1.75m, 45.4% of the value of all departmental fraud.

Kind of ironic isn't it?

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Fuckwits

As Oscar Wilde once wrote, almost:

"To lose one set of discs is careless, to lose seven is downright fuckwitted!"

It beggars belief, but the fuckwits in HMRC have announced that yet another set of data has in fact been lost.

This time the "professionals" in Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs have admitted losing the personal details of over 6,500 people claiming pensions.

The details were lost at an office of HMRC in Cardiff, after a data cartridge went missing in September. The cartridge had been sent to the Cardiff office by Countrywide Assured, a life assurance and pensions company.

Details on the cartridge included names, addresses, national insurance numbers and pension contributions, according to Graham Kettleborough, chief executive officer of Chesnara, the parent company of Countrywide Assured.

The cartridge was signed for when it reached the office, but was subsequently mislaid. However, the spokesperson insisted that, because the information on the data cartridge can only be accessed by a mainframe computer, the risk to the individuals involved is "very low".

Oh, so that's alright then!

These fuckwits have no idea what the hell they are doing.

Why have then not been fined and sent to trial for negligence?

HMRC said in a statement on Tuesday:

"We are taking this loss extremely seriously and have done everything possible to locate the data cartridge. We would like to apologise to all those affected."

As I have said before, a class action should be taken out against HMRC by all those who have had their personal security compromised by HMRC's negligence.

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A Serving of Fudge

Alastair darling served MP's up a generous portion of fudge yesterday, when he outlined the results of the Poynter review into the HMRC "Datagate" fiasco.

Seemingly the review is not yet finished.

How convenient!

"Let us wait and establish the facts rather than jump to conclusions."

Was Darling's response to detailed probings from MPs.

In the meantime, Poynter has come up with a few urgent recommendations.

HMRC will need a new organisational structure, simpler one with accountability at executive level.

A fair point, the trouble is "simplicity" and Gordon Brown simply do not go together.

Here are some his other recommendations, the pharse "bleeding obvious" springs to mind:

• A reminder to all staff from the Chairman of HMRC of the importance of data
  security with some specific guidance



• The appointment of a senior official to the new post of Director of Data
  Security



• The appointment of Data Guardians in each area of HMRC



• The imposition of a complete ban on the transfer of bulk data onto removable
  media without adequate security protection such as encryption



• The disabling of the download function on all personal and laptop computers
  in use across HMRC to prevent their use to download data onto removable
  media



• The utilisation of secure couriers and appropriate tamper proof packaging in
  the transport of bulk data stored on removable media

The full verdict on the failure HMRC's data procedures is due "in the first half" of next year. A standard ploy by government, designed to ensure that by then everyone will have lost interest in the subject.

Here is the Poynter Review in full (all 6 pages of it).

A nice little earner for the consultants!

By the way, let us be perfectly clear, the report is complete shite and a waste of our money (anyone who uses the phrases "world class" and "HMRC" in the same sentence is clearly out of his depth).

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Lost

Oh dear, the poor old HMRC does seem to be having trouble keeping track of things.

As if losing the data records of 25 million people was not bad enough, HMRC have now managed to lose a stash of coke and some fake passports.

Seized drugs, worth £80K, and other goods went missing from a "secure" HMRC store at Coventry Airport. Detectives are investigating if the items were stolen or have been lost.

Way to go lads!

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Spin

The Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kieran Poynter, will publish an interim report into the IT failures at the HMRC on Monday. It had been scheduled for today, unaccountably it is being delayed until the final week in the run up to Christmas.

I wonder why?

Coincidentally, or maybe not, Chancellor Alistair Darling is to announce measures on Monday that will in his view prevent a repeat performance of "Datagate". He will also call a halt to the police search for the missing discs.

The search was downgraded last week from 47 detectives to 32.

Needless to say, HMRC and the government continue to blame a junior member of staff for the loss.

How convenient!

This blame game continues to be played out, despite the fact that the CDs were sent unencrypted three times and the HMRC ignored a request to send only part of the information rather than the complete database.

A pretty lousy way to deflect blame, and to spin the story, but this is what we have come to expect from this government.

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