Building Our Future - Dorothy Brown Speaks

Director of personal tax, Dorothy Brown, is quoted by The Star saying that HMRC would do as much as possible to keep staff.

“We want to retain as many staff as possible which is why we have given people five or six years’ notice so they have time to look at their choices and options. 

We fully appreciate the move might be difficult in certain personal circumstances but we will work with staff on retaining or upskilling them.

If people do want to travel we will support them, perhaps helping out with travel costs if it is more expensive and we will put together a series of HR packages. We are committed to keep as many staff as possible.”

I doubt that!

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 Fixes Postal Problems

My thanks to a loyal reader who posted the following comment, wrt a message posted by Dorothy Brown (PT Operations Director) to HMRC staff yesterday:

"More rearranging of the deck chairs, this is a message put out by Dotty Brown today:

As part of my commitment to keep you regularly updated, I wanted to let you know about our latest preparations to get HMRC ready for the new tax year.

As you know, for most of this year we've prioritised work on phones to ensure we're there for customers calling us for advice and support. With the new tax year just around the corner, we are joining up with other business lines over the next few weeks so that we start 2015-16 in the best position across all of our work - phones, ‎post and work management.

In the next few days, around 400 colleagues from Enforcement and Compliance (E&C) will start to work with us to allow more of our people to concentrate on post and work management. Those in Local Compliance and Debt Management and Banking from East Kilbride, Edinburgh, Livingston and Newcastle will be helping to support HMRC customers while staying in their own business lines. I'm grateful for the speed at which E&C colleagues have responded to meet customer needs, particularly during such a busy time.

This is all part of HMRC's approach to working flexibly to support our customers where and when they need us, as we have done in the July and January peaks. I'm sure you will support these colleagues as you have during other peaks of work over the past year, and I'll keep you all updated as this work progresses.

Dorothy."

How nice to see that HMRC is so responsive to the issues (ie Postal Delays) raised on this site!

Thus we can be assuaged that the postal problems are now solved!

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"

Where's Dotty?

My thanks to a loyal reader who posted this comment the other day in response to my article about Dorthy Brown:

"Dorothy Brown is now the PT ops director and has nothing to do with the chief people officer role Ken"

It seems there is some confusion (in my mind at least) as to what Brown's role actually is now.

For you see, according to Gov.UK she is still "Interim Chief People Officer":

"Biography

Dorothy joined HMRC as the HR Director for Personal Tax Group in January 2008 and becomes the Interim Chief People Officer following her role as the Director Workforce Management for HMRC and HR Director for Enforcement & Compliance.

Between June 2009 and March 2012 Dorothy was Director of HR Operations for HMRC, responsible for HR Shared Services, Employee Relations and Advice, Reward and Policy, Security and Information, Occupational Health and Safety and Employee Engagement. Dorothy joined HR in the Court Service in 1991 and was the HMCS HR Director prior to joining HMRC. Before that she worked in different business areas of the Lord Chancellor’s Department, including Finance, Audit and the Crown Court."

Additionally, according to LinkedIn she is HR Director.

Please can someone send me a link or document that shows her current title?

Thanks.

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"

Dorothy Brown - Building Our Future

My thanks to a loyal reader who forwarded me the following message sent to HMRC staff from Dorothy Brown Interim Chief People Officer (oddly enough in 2013 she was Chief People Officer, why now is she only "Interim"?).

Her message contains one minor glitch, in the second paragraph she doesn't use a capital "F" in the "Building our Future" phrase.

That's definitely off message!
  
"Personal Tax Operations
Building our Future in PT Operations – the next steps
17 July 2014

Now that the first wave of Building our Future events has taken place in PT Operations I wanted to write and give you an update on what’s happening next with all the feedback you’ve given us.

Building our future, HMRC’s national conversation about the future of our department has been taking place in PT Operations for nearly six weeks now. You’ll remember that because July is the busiest time of the year for our helplines I asked for the roll-out of these events to be brought forward so that as many people as possible were able to attend an event before the end of June. So far we’ve run over 60 sessions for around 7,000 of our people. This is a great achievement and everyone else will have an opportunity to attend an event by the mid-August.

The first thing I want to say is a huge thank you to everyone for bringing such lively enthusiasm, passion and debate to the conversation. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a number of events and your commitment and dedication to do the best for our customers and your desire to be involved in the way we transform HMRC really shone through.

The feedback from the events has been phenomenal – and a number of similar issues keep coming-up again and again. You are rightly interested in what a move to regional centres will mean, how new digital tools will impact on our work, and about career opportunities, training and communications.

While Building our Future is a going to be an ongoing conversation, I don’t want us to delay in addressing the areas when we can do something now:

Training – has been a big issue at every single event and you’ve told us that there should be a better balance between online learning and face-to-face training when changes are introduced.

I want us to work with you to look at how future learning is managed. As a first step, and in response to your concerns, training to support the introduction of digitised mail will now be delivered face-to-face instead of using e-learning.

IT and security – has been another major talking point and you’ve expressed concerns that our systems aren’t fit for purpose. Our people in Dundee told me about some real issues that were affecting their work. To try and address these problems I have arranged for a team from the Chief Digital and Information Officer’s (CDIO) area to go and spend some time with our front-line staff to see the problems caused by unreliable IT kit.

Office environment – you’ve told us that the condition and cleanliness of your offices often leaves a lot to be desired. In particular colleagues in Manchester expressed real concerns about the maintenance of their building. I have directly approached the Director of Estates and Support Services (ESS) about fixing these problems and I’m pleased to report that a new cleaning programme in Manchester has now been implemented.

These might seem like small issues, but I want you to know that we are committed to addressing immediate issues where we can. We are collating all of the written feedback from your sessions and will analyse this in detail.

The first phase of Building our Future is nearly complete, and a second wave of events will start in October. Many of you have told me that you are still reserving judgement and will be waiting to see what happens next. I want you to know that I will be striving to keep up the momentum and to demonstrate our commitment to this two-way conversation. I’m meeting with my senior leadership team on 11 August to look at more of your feedback and to discuss the next steps. Following this meeting you can expect to see regular communication from us on the progress we are making with Building our Future in PT Operations.

Dorothy"

Given that she is now only "Interim", HMRC staff may choose to take what she says with a pinch of salt.

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"

HR Matters

I recently asked for input from HMRC staff about Dorothy Brown (HMRC's Director of HR Operations) wrt HMRC's ongoing promotion exercise that is causing angst amongst staff.

My thanks to a loyal reader who dropped me a wee note about the exercise, that adds some grist to the mill.

Seemingly this is the first major internal promotions exercise carried out within HMRC for a number of years. My loyal reader understands that there are around 500 AO to O grade promotions, and around 50 O to HO grade promotions.

Apparently a similar number of vacancies existed last year. However, most of these were filled by the transfer of staff who would otherwise have been made redundant.

Moving forward one year, I understand that HMRC have told staff that lessons had been learned and that this new round would be through a more streamlined system.

Staff would need to:

1 Complete an online application form, giving examples of those competences that "the lean machine" is looking for.

2 Provide a supporting statement from their manager.

3 Complete and pass an online psychometric test.

Once these stages were completed, those applicants who passed the test could then expect that their forms would be graded by a human being and any ties would be decided by reference to those online scores.

I am given to understand that around 4,000 applications were made.

Ironically HMRC's "professional" HR people eg Mike Falvey and  Dorothy Brown were overwhelmed by the response (so much for having their fingers on the pulse of their staff!).

Thus, having been overwhelmed, they decided to change the rules of the game (midway through), and set a cut off level of the top 1,500 highest scoring individuals who could expect their applications to be considered. Those below this level (even if they were more capable, but not used to timed tests) were cast to the wind.

I understand that Falvey et al are now burying their heads in the sand and ignoring questions and complaints about the handling/mishandling of the process.

A cynic might ask if Falvey has too much on his plate, what with being Chief People Officer and owner of Mike Falvey Associates?

As ever comments, opinions and further information are always welcome.

Thanks.

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 Taxwise.

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 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"

Question About Dorothy Brown

My thanks to a loyal reader who has reached out to me, asking for input from HMRC staff about Dorothy Brown (HMRC's Director of HR Operations).

According to my loyal reader some HMRC staff are a tad "peeved" at how the ongoing promotion exercise is going in HMRC.

Would this be the same promotion exercise that I wrote about recently thusly?

"Around 500 or so Admin Assistant grade (the bottom grade) employees have been promoted by one grade to Assistant Officers.

I understand that they were picked by their managers and all they had to do was say yes, not a form in sight.  This of course has upset some who previously had to work very hard producing a CV of competences and be interviewed to get the same result, some very recently ."  

Anyhoo, I am given to understand that Ms Brown recently announced that at least half the applications made by staff would be rejected/binned halfway through the process. Apparently this has not gone down well.

Please feel free to contact me if you have further information/details about this.

Thanks.

As ever, comments and views are always welcome.

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 Taxwise.

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 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"