Chris Mortlock To Leave HMRC

My thanks to a loyal reader who penned me a line over the weekend about the impending departure of Chris Mortlock Head of Operations & Security - IMS Live Services at HMRC (as per LinkedIn).

As per Agile Across The Board:

"As Head of IT Solutions Development and Operations at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Chris is accountable for: the update, development and operational running of systems and services that collect in excess of £130bn a year for the UK; and the provision of systems and services to UK Border Force and law enforcement communities that help protect the UK. Chris is currently leading the development teams that are enabling HMRC to deliver a step change in its digital service offering through the development of digital services using agile methodologies.

Previously, Chris held the position of Deputy Director of Security & Risk at HMRC, where he was responsible for the transformation of the IT security processes and systems after the Poynter Review."

Subject to confirmation he will depart for CSC (a provider of consulting and IT services to many of the UK’s leading organisations) on 20th December 2013.

CSC states the following:

"Many of our clients are responsible for the country’s infrastructure and security – including the UK Border Agency (UKBA), National Grid, Network Rail, and Transport for London, Royal Mail Group and the NHS – and they use technology powered by CSC."

Interestingly one of its clients is Aviva, which Phil Pavitt joined in January this year as did Mark Hall in October.

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"

Mark Hall Warns of The Tail Wagging The Dog

In August Mark Hall, HMRC's outgoing Chief Information Officer (CIO) gave his incoming replacement (Mark Dearnley) some advice about the major challenges facing HMRC for when he arrives in October from Vodafone.

Was that the last that we would hear from Hall?

Apparently not, this week he has been speaking at Gartner’s Outsourcing & Strategic Partnerships Summit in London, where he offered some sage (a little IT pun there..very little) advice to HMRC and its Aspire contractors (mainly Capgemini).

Aspire (which costs £700M per annum) was set up in 2004, with prime contractor Capgemini delivering much of HMRC’s IT services via an ecosystem of suppliers that include BT, Fujitsu, and Level 3. The contract is due for renewal in 2017, and is currently being restructured.

Hall described it as a "child of its time", hardly a ringing endorsement, and warned of supplier dependency wherein the supplier (Capgemini) is the integrator of what HMRC does (a case of the tail wagging the dog)

He noted that suppliers are now offering "vanilla" services (ie basic services), and noted that most of the innovation is coming from SMEs and start-up businesses. Seemingly large suppliers are “tied up in knots” and they are still selling IT in verticals. Hall is of the view that working with SMEs, that have innovative products and ideas, would be beneficial.

Hall is quoted by Computer World UK:

“Our outsourcing partners have been there when we have needed them, they’ve been with us in the good times and they have been with us in the tough times. That’s a lot of what the contract was designed for in the early 2000s. The challenge is that the whole world is moving and changing around this contract.

It is really difficult to keep pace with the market. Go back to 2001, how many people would have put cloud-based services in their contracts at that point? How many people would have thought about the social networking aspect? You wouldn’t. The contract was designed to be flexible, but was designed in a completely different paradigm than we face today.

It’s also created supplier dependency – we’ve got a great partner (Capgemini), but our challenge is that our partner is the prime integrator of what we do, so a lot of the knowledge and a lot of the experience rests with the supplier. It’s a challenge about how you bring innovation into delivery.

What we have done is a lot of outsourcing-based work, but the challenge is how to bring innovation, and if I’m being slightly blunt, innovation from SIs and large vendors that are trying to sell us the vanilla type IT.

Most innovation is coming from start-ups and SMEs, it’s not coming from the large traditional vendors. So there’s a challenge about how you get those people into a large outsourcing arrangement. We recently ran an event where we brought in 12 small businesses and ran an innovation session with them for a day, and we are now taking all those 12 forward in terms of ideas they are developing.

But it’s taking that radical thought to really put those people in. If you are a small business of 10 people with a really great idea, imagine coming into an organisation like HMRC that start to talk to you about risk, challenges, availability – it all becomes quite difficult. So we are doing a lot of incubator work to try and help those businesses.”

In other words HMRC's IT future, if it wishes to succeed, lies with SME's not large suppliers.

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"

Hall Outlines HMRC's Challenges Ahead

Mark Hall, HMRC's outgoing Chief Information Officer (CIO) has given his incoming replacement (Mark Dearnley) some advice about the major challenges facing HMRC for when he arrives in October from Vodafone.

HMRC is currently working on systems consolidation that will reduce the number of systems serving the former Customs & Excise side of the organisation by 300. Hall states in Computing that part of the aim of the consolidation programmes has been to clear the way to put more taxes online, in a more integrated manner as HMRC aims for the "cloud".

Hall is quoted:

"We already have 200 online services. These are primarily targeted at business 'customers'. They are things like VAT, for example, or they are targeting things like self-assessment. Our ambition is to consolidate them even further and start to look at individual and personal taxpayers in the next wave of digitisation." 

HMRC hopes that the digitisation process will cut the number of paper filings and phone calls taxpayers have to make to HMRC and, therefore, will eventually save some £50M annually in administrative costs.

As per Hall:

"Going forward, we will be targeting our personal tax customers more. We have four key exemplar projects we are running in this area. The first one is PAYE [pay as you earn] online, which will ultimately deliver an online service to 39 million individual taxpayers.

You could go online to inform us that you have got a new company car, for example, so the service is targeted at providing the information you already get on paper, but in an online experience, and giving people a simple route to log simple changes and changes of circumstances.

The second one is called 'My Tax for Business', which will provide an online portal for business so that they can see all of their taxes in one place - a bit like online banking... If you're a business, you will be able to go into one place and administer all your taxes from one place.

The third one is paperless self-assessment. Self-assessment is already online, but you still receive a piece of paper asking you to file.

The final one is for agents and intermediaries, to enable them to act and support their customers in a similar way. As their customers have moved online, we need to move agents online as well - enabling the agents to do the same thing as their clients."

These projects are very ambitious, especially given that HMRC are still in the process of rolling out RTI. In Hall's opinion RTI is:

"absolutely on track".

So there we are, the new CIO has quite a task ahead of him; it is therefore very kind of Hall to help guide Dearnley in this manner.

My question to the staff members of HMRC, how are the above projects going thus far?

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"

Poacher Turned Gamekeeper

My thanks to a loyal reader who pointed me to a press release that HMRC issued yesterday, concerning the appointment of a new HMRC Chief Information Office (CIO), Mark Dearnley.

Dearnley comes from the private sector from a company that loyal readers may well have heard of........Vodafone....cough!

Sadly I see he refers to HMRC as having a "customer base", oh dear!

Anyhoo, Dearnley has quite a task ahead of him as CIO's within HMRC don't seem to last the course. Phil Pavitt moved from the role in October 2012, then left HMRC in November and his acting replacement, Mark Hall, evidently didn't cut the mustard.

Does anyone know what has happened to Mark Hall, ie is he still in HMRC?

I ask because rumours abound that he was not best pleased at being snubbed.

HMRC won't say why Hall had been denied the promotion to CIO, as per Computer Weekly:

“The CIO recruitment process was subject to fair and open competition overseen by a civil service commissioner. Following a rigorous and transparent selection process, an external candidate was chosen. We do not comment on individuals who may have been on the interview panel. Mark’s replacement as CIO will be announced in due course,”

It also appears that the role of CIO is being downgraded across Whitehall.

Interesting times ahead methinks!

Anyhoo, here is the press release from HMRC:

"HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has announced the appointment of one of the country’s leading IT chiefs as the department’s new Chief Digital and Information Officer.

Mark Dearnley, who is currently the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Vodafone UK, is joining HMRC in October. He will take control of a £500 million-a-year IT operation that serves 45 million individuals, 4.8 million businesses and 65,000 HMRC employees. He will be responsible for implementing HMRC’s £200 million digitisation programme and accelerating the planned delivery of online services for all taxpayers. He will also lead HMRC’s physical, personnel and information security.

Mr Dearnley has been CIO at Vodafone UK since 2010 with responsibility for IT supporting 19 million customers. He led a programme to overhaul Vodafone’s business-critical information systems and was named Oracle Global Business Unit CIO of the Year in 2012 for this achievement. Mr Dearnley also restructured Vodafone’s IT operating model and introduced Cloud-based technologies into the mobile operator. 

David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said:
“It is an indication of the scale and seriousness of the Government’s digital ambition that one of the UK’s most experienced CIOs is leaving the private sector to take on this major role. Mark Dearnley’s appointment to HMRC is evidence that Government has the cutting-edge challenges that can attract the very best leaders in IT to public service.”

HMRC Chief Executive, Lin Homer, added:
“Mark is an exceptionally experienced CIO, with strong leadership and change management skills as well as an accomplished technical background across a spectrum of IT disciplines. HMRC has already embarked on an ambitious programme of digitisation to provide taxpayers with modern online services and Mark is the right person to deliver that for the UK.”

Mark Dearnley said: 
“I have spent my entire career in the private sector, mostly in customer-facing businesses. But no private business in the UK can match the customer base, scale or complexity of HMRC, which makes this role irresistible. I am thrilled to have been appointed and can’t wait to get started.”

Notes for editors:

1. Mr Dearnley was recruited through a fair and open competition under the Government’s business appointment procedures for senior civil servants. The recruitment process was overseen by the Civil Service Commissioner, who led a panel that included two Permanent Secretaries and a Non-Executive Director. The UK Government Chief Operating Officer was consulted throughout the process. The appointment was approved by the Prime Minister.
2. The annual salary for this Director General role is £180,000, which is at the Senior Civil Service (SCS) 3 pay band.
3. Mr Dearnley is CIO of Vodafone UK, where his primary focus is using IT to improve the customer experience. He has worked internationally in the telecoms industry over the last decade.
4. Prior to Vodafone, Mr Dearnley spent six years at Cable and Wireless, as CIO and in other senior IT roles. He also spent three years at Boots the Chemists, first as Chief Operating Officer for the start-up of Boots.com and latterly as Programme Director.
5. He has a degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Brunel University and is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology and British Computer Society."

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"

Out of The Box - HMRC's 7,000 Tablets

As HMRC moves towards its paperless dream, it will hand out 7,000 tablets and laptops to employees in an effort to improve their mobility.

CIO Mark Hall wants the workforce to be more mobile.

Hall told Computer Weekly that HMRC wants to introduce "out of the box" consumer devices.

"The ultimate number will be about 7,000 – but we don’t at the moment know how many of that will be iPads, laptops etc.

We are doing a piece with HR at the moment about mobile working, and how we can make our VAT inspectors more mobile, for example.”

An initial iPad pilot is taking place with a dozen HMRC executives.

“Then we will pause and reflect and look at user cases for the next tranche. Once we are ready, we will move quite quickly.” 

Those of you who are worried about another Datagate occurring should sleep peacefully. Seemingly the devices will work on non-restricted information, classified at Impact Level 2 security levels and below. HMRC will also work closely with the government security arm CESG, to ensure that security will not be compromised.

No worries then!

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



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"

HMRC Moves To Siam

It seems that HMRC is rethinking its approach to IT, or rather more specifically its approach to outsourcing its IT development. Computer Weekly reports that HMRC intends to double the number of its software developers to 600, in a bid to reduce its reliance on companies such as Capgemini and its existing Aspire contract.

The plan is to increase the number of its in-house software development team by 300 over the next 3 years, as the Aspire contract expires in 2017.

Mark Hall, HMRC's CIO, said that HMRC will not renew the Aspire contract in its current form. That's remarkably open of him, given that HMRC claim that they do not like disclosing contractual details lest it disadvantage them:

"...disclosure of commercially sensitive information could undermine the commercial interests of both parties and potentially the efficacy of the agreement we have with our contracted supplier."

Anyhoo, Hall is quoted:

“My piece is to work toward 2017 and how to build capability internally around commercial, business analysis, digital capability and adopting agile methodologies.
We are looking at the role of the in-house team. Currently we have around 300 people working as software developers, we are looking to double that over the next three years and build an ecosystem of SMEs around them.”

An "ecosystem of SME's"...hmmm, what does that mean?

He then went on to talk about a "slide path":

“This isn’t about looking to in-source everything, but moving to a more mixed environment

We don’t want a big procurement, and we are trying to create a slide path toward internal capability.”

Hall says that the future of HMRC lies in Siam (system integration and management model), either HMRC itself would take it on or it would use a supplier to do it.

There is of course a fly in HMRC's oinkment, suppliers are reluctant to take on Siam in government because they view it as the most risky and least lucrative option.

The plans of mice, men and HMRC!

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



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"