My thanks to a loyal reader who dropped me a note yesterday about HMRC DMB Field Force collectors and their claims for lunch, tea and coffee:
"You might care to speculate why every single one of HMRC DMB Field Force collectors was recently told that they would no longer be able to claim for tea, coffee and lunch taken while out on the road (max £8.25 per day).Views and comments welcome.
According to management lizards, they should never have been entitled to claim at all.
Interestingly, when they protested, they were told in no uncertain terms to back off, otherwise an exercise to recover the last 5 YEARS in claims was on the cards.
I wonder:
a) If this money was improperly paid in the first place
b) If it was, why is it not being recovered (taxpayers should be lucky!), or
c) If they are nasty bullying shits trying to score points with excom by making up the rules as they go along.....??"
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Farcical...
ReplyDeleteLove the threat about backdating 5 years. Threats and retrospection seems to be the only modus operandi at HMRC these days.
Definitely nasty, bullying shits
ReplyDeleteMorale on the rocks amongst FFCs. Liars and shameless self-promoters for managers, a huge exodus of the most experienced collectors pissed off with endless stats,teleconferences,PMR bollocks,debts called on unverified,zero support from office staff.....the list goes on. This can only be a quite deliberate attempt to sabotage in-house debt recovery.
ReplyDeletePersonal pool cars at public expense provided to FFCs...........who are then told to stay at home, and phone taxpayers up........Cronyism rampant, managers lie,lie,lie. Still - at least we have BOF3 to look forward to.........to qoute the Sex Pistols.......No future, No future for you !
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth are personal pool cars provided at public expense to HMRC staff??? Is this not a taxable benefit which would be treated as such to any other taxpayer? This needs robust investigation as there is surely something badly wrong with the governance structure allowing HMRC to avoid scrutiny.
DeleteWill be a lot of non-Hmrc bods reading this, saying....So What ? Doesn't affect us, bloody pampered civil servants...... Ask yourself this. If they are wiilling to lie and steal fron their own staff, what are they willing to do to `customers'......
ReplyDeleteVery good point 16.50 ;- take FRB for example;- scandalous massaging of results
ReplyDeleteTo be entitled to claim a single meal allowance they would need to be away from home or office for 5 hours or more...
ReplyDeleteThey are. On call, at locations often 100 miles away from home / office. Mike Skeltons idea to bully staff in this way I believe, supported by his poodle, Chris Brierley......names all too familiar to hapless victims of their conniving !
Delete5 years......if only ! Try 20 years, as the system has been the same for at least that long, and these allowances were claimed by distraint officers prior to Field Force. But managers werent crooks in those days!
DeleteThe above comment from 12 September 2015 names an HMRC civil servant who is alleged to have bullied staff - it goes on to mention 'hapless victims' suggesting a widespread problem. What are HMRC doing about the bullying culture?
DeleteMike Skelton is indeed a management bully in my experience. Whatever the issue why don't they sack bullies?
DeleteThere are a number of serial bullies running riot in HMRC, most of them in management grades. You have to wonder why HMRC do nothing about these self serving misfits?
Deletehttps://bullyonline.org/index.php/bullies/5-serial-bully
DeletePerhaps the most easily recognisable character traits of a Serial Bully are:
Jekyll and Hyde nature - Dr Jekyll is "charming" and "charismatic"; "Hyde" is "evil";
Convincing liar - Makes up anything to fit his needs at that moment, and gets believed;
Treats some people in a way that causes them unprecedented levels of stress, frustration and fear;
Damages the health and reputations of organisations and individuals;
Reacts to criticism with denial, retaliation and by feigning victimhood and blaming victims;
Apparently immune from disciplinary action;
Moves to a new target when the present one burns out or leaves.
Symptoms of a Serial Bully at work
The influence of a serial bully on a working environment should be readily apparent to an employer's senior managers, especially the HR manager. If there's a serial bully in a position of influence, these managers will know of employees who once were valued:
having an uncharacteristic drop in performance without any logical explanation
complaining of bullying or similar by a particular person, or by that person's subordinates;
claiming to be suffering from "burnout", "stress", "stress breakdown", "depression" or similar;
going on long term sick leave because of stress or some debilitating psychological problem, and never returning to work;
having a grievance about poor treatment that takes months or even years to close down;
unexpectedly taking early or ill-health retirement;
being fired for reasons that were very old or trivial or out-of-character;
in any case leaving in unsatisfactory circumstances, with the true reason hidden behind a compromise agreement with a confidentiality clause;
Faced with the above, some businesses would strive to establish the cause and deal with it, to prevent any recurrence. For organisations where this is normal, but thought to be symptomatic of weak, awkward employees rather than dysfunctional management, bullying is likely to be an institutional problem. Such employers are likely to be reluctant to acknowledge even the possibility that bullying is an issue, doing what they can to conceal it, including by attributing responsibility for employees' predicaments to the employees themselves. One reason for not investigating alleged bullying and abuse, especially when it is widespread, could be the fear of corporate and personal liability for its effects.
So many examples ring true with HMRC treated me after decades of services. My grievance took years to close down as HMRC used this as a another tactic in the 'wearing down' process. I sometimes wonder if HMRC were deliberately pushing me to suicide. Utter scum and the cowards who hide behind the 'just doing our jobs' mantra (since when has it been HMRCs job to attempt to pervert the course of justice?) will not be forgotten or forgiven. This country is governed by a rule of law and HMRC undermine that basic principle.
DeleteSo the bully and his poodle are still getting away with it in debt management and are never challenged by their managers about their questionable results. The poodle is an expert and builds a career on telling people what they want to hear. Will the truth ever get out about Field Force.
DeleteAll those being bullied in field force and HMRC generally should contact Whistleblowers UK - it appears thugs are in control and this needs exposing for the greater good.
DeleteI really hope that it is true the bully was finally suspended and if the poodle followed him out of Field Force the truth about their fictional collection rates may be exposed!
Delete"fictional collection rates" ?? Sounds like another case of HMRC corruption. How long before these scoundrels are held accountable for how they behave?
Delete......which most of them are, which is why the lunch ENTITLEMENT is claimed. Fair enough if you are not five miles from the office and for five hours, but to withdraw an entitlement that is correctly claimed is a dreadful abuse of power.
ReplyDeleteI agree... Don' t understand why this isn't being fought... Given that all expenses have to be approved by managers... is HMRC saying that for 5 years managers have been allowing fraudulent T&S claims?
Delete