HMRC Halves IT Spend - Is Phil Pavitt a Mysteron?

Phil Pavitt (HMRC's Chief Information Officer and director of change) has told a public sector efficiency expo in London that HMRC has reduced its spending on IT from £1.4BN to £700M in two years.

That's quite an achievement for a man who, when he was at NTL, oversaw the "Harmony" project; which was designed to unify eight billing platforms and 28 CRM databases. Harmony was late and over budget.

Seemingly the cuts in HMRC have not come at the expense of quality of service.

Good!

Pavitt is quoted in the Guardian:

"This year it was just under £700m, and by the end of the spending review it will be just over £600. 

And yet the service quality has dramatically improved, not measured by me, but measured by the speaker after me [Amyas Morse, comptroller and auditor general at the National Audit Office]."

This being the same NAO that, in July 2011, said:

"There is clear evidence that HMRC is beginning to stabilise its administration of PAYE, following the disruption to processing which flowed from the introduction of its new computer system. 

However, stabilisation will not be fully complete until 2013, according to the Department, and it will need to deliver its plan to improve PAYE data quality if it is to realise the benefits of the new system and prepare for the move to real time information."

This also being the same NAO that in March 2012 stated that Caseflow and Spectrum have not delivered "any additional benefits", and warned HMRC that it will not meet its future forecasts to collect an additional £8.9BN by 2014/15, thanks to the failure of Caseflow and Spectrum.

Anyhoo, ignoring those "small points", Pavitt went on to state that HMRC had 31 platforms in place two years ago, but now only has one.

Quote:

"We identified one of those and said, 'Okay, we're going to migrate to that. Whatever that one is we're also going to modernise to the latest version,' which we perhaps hadn't always had in every part of our business.

The cost of the new platform is much cheaper than the running and the maintenance of the old platform. Freeing up and reinvesting that money means we'll replace every single application - two-thirds of our infrastructure - in the next four years for the outlay of less than £20m, when the original bill was closer to £200m. 

Not a pipe dream, but a commercial reality.

If you have call centres attracting a large number of calls, but their IT is not available for 120 to 150 minutes a week, that introduces a level of inefficiency. 

If you have call centres whose IT is a 100% month after month, inevitably you give the business a chance to improve their operation, which they have done, to meet the need of the customer.

IT transformation, which foreruns some of the bigger transformations at HMRC, was critical to get right."

So there you are folks, everything is fine!

I wonder if Pavitt is the Mysteron agent within HMRC, that I referred to the other day?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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Not The Bleeding Edge of Technology

In September 2011 I wrote the following about HMRC's Real Time Information (RTI) system:

"HMRC have fessed up privately to ministers that the deadline will be missed.

Universal Credit is now being assessed by the Major Projects Authority, a group of officials and commercial experts from the Treasury and Cabinet Office. Their key concern being that the “real time” information system, to be provided by HMRC, will not be ready by April 2013."

RTI will involve employers and pension providers telling HMRC about tax, national insurance contributions and other deductions at the time, or before, payments are made, instead of waiting until the end of the tax year. The move is intended to help DWP provide claimants with universal credit without demanding information on their incomes, and with more confidence that it is getting the payments right.

Some six months on, and I see that Mark Holden (the RTI Programme Director) is happily telling the Guardian that it is on schedule for full "delivery by October 2013".

In fact several hundred thousand employers will take part in a pilot this April.

Holden is quoted:

"All the IT is tracking, we're in final phases of testing, and it's looking very good."

Whilst he is confident that the technology is solid, seemingly implementation may cause a few problems:

"Probably it's more around the implementation. 

 Although this is very big IT, it's not bleeding edge technology. 

The biggest change is around any changes the employers have to make, so the real thing for us is making sure the communications are clear, making sure the guidance we are publishing is in plain English and the employers understand it first time around.

That's why we're really pleased to be able to run a pilot, which is not a luxury we've had many times before."

A will allow myself a small chuckle wrt his optimism about HMRC communicating in "plain English".

Now here's the "rub", most of the programme is built on platforms already used by HMRC.

As loyal readers are already aware, Caseflow et al are not exactly "flavour" of the month with staff (or the NAO) wrt functionality, user friendliness etc.

Is it not therefore a tad "dangerous" to build RTI on top of a shaky set of poorly functioning systems?

Holden, to his credit, takes full ownership of the project:

"Although we're really clear in governance terms that [RTI is] an HMRC programme.."


I note that governments (of all political hues) have not exactly covered themselves in glory when it comes to IT implementations (aside from HMRC debacles of the past), I would refer you to the disgrace of the Computer Sciences Corporation failed and scrapped £1.9BN contract for the national NHS system.

So folks, is it really on target and on budget?

Will it really live up to the hype?

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.

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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"

Caseflow - Spectrum Isn't Green

In September 2011 I wrote the following:

"Despite all the public pronouncements by HMRC that improvements are on schedule, and that targets etc will be met, it appears that one particular target will not be met.

Anything important?

Errrmm, yes actually...Universal Credit, the flagship of the government's plans to simplify the benefits system ."

That prompted a discussion amongst loyal readers (LR's) about the failure of Caseflow.

LR1:

"and get shot of PaceSetter and Caseflow. These systems cost a colossal amount of taxpayers' money, yet there is not a shred of evidence that HMRC have improved their performance as a consequence of their implementation.

Does anyone know where to find a verifiable figure for the costs to date of PaceSetter and Caseflow?

It's only taxpayers' money that is being wasted, so the management don't care, but I imagine Joe Public and the Public Accounts Committee might be interested how many £millions are being flushed down the loo."

LR2

"Re Pacesetter and Caseflow. They will never be ditched as they have never been continuously " reviewed". You will find numbers bandied about hundreds of millions in efficiency savings which conflate increases in productivity with greater tax take all because of the new systems.

UC will have to be delivered, maybe on time, maybe late, because it must. Tax Credits need to be sorted out. Pacesetter will continue as it believed to be the cure to all that ails HMRC ( as well as the rest of the Civil Service).

Case flow is getting regular mentions on the Hotseat. The answers are emphatic. Nothing is wrong, this is simply continuous improvement!"

Well now, here we are almost six months later and Sky reports that taxpayers have spent £98M on two tax collection projects that failed to bring in any extra money.

Can you guess what one of them was children?

Yes, that's right, Caseflow (the other being Spectrum - is Captain Scarlet involved now?).

These new systems were meant to bring in £743M last year. However, the National Audit Office (NAO) has stated that they have not delivered "any additional benefits".

The NAO have warned that HMRC will not meet its future forecasts to collect an additional £8.9BN by 2014/15, thanks to the failure of Caseflow and Spectrum.

Why then when issues are raised at Hotseat about Caseflow failing, are they swept under the carpet with the answer that "Nothing is wrong, this is simply continuous improvement."?

Is a Mysteron agent within HMRC?

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"