In August I wrote that HMRC had bought some land in Stratford wrt HMRC's plans for hubs.
Moving forward to the present, my thanks to a loyal reader who advised me that HMRC is likely to reduce its office capacity from 170 offices at present, to around a dozen regional centres in five years.
A few "transitional sites" will continue a little longer, presumably because there are too many staff there now for HMRC to be able to afford to pay them off.
Announcements to the staff will take place region by region from 10th to 19th November.
A message sent to HMRC staff by HMRC's chief people officer William Hague this week (seen by Civil Service World) says the "overwhelming majority" of employees will be moved to the regional offices as smaller units are closed, and sets out plans for a series of more limited "transitional sites" to allow some staff to continue to work locally.
As per Hague:
"These changes are one of the biggest building blocks of our transformation, as we simply can't transform the way that we serve the public without fundamentally changing how and where we work.Loyal readers with long memories may recall that HMRC has estate contracts (around 60% of HMRC's estate is contracted to Mapeley) with Mapeley (feel free to search this site for details about Mapeley).
That's because the way that we're currently organised, across 170 offices, simply doesn't make business or financial sense. It makes it hard for us to collaborate, develop people, or respond to operational priorities – and has created a position where we have isolated pockets of colleagues who have limited career opportunities.
The only way that we can change this is by rationalising our estate. Our estate contracts are structured in such a way that we need to act now. The alternative would involve us being forced to keep deteriorating buildings that we can do little about."
The good news is that, according to Homer, HMRC is on a course to become more
"diamond-shaped"
Whatever that means?
Tax does have to be taxing.
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