William Hague's Revolving Door

My thanks to a loyal reader who pointed out that HMRC's ex Chief People Officer (William Hague) is now HR Director at the FCA.

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"

Diamonds Are Forever! - HMRC Becomes Diamond Shaped

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.

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." 

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).

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.

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 Declares 420 Staff To Be "Surplus"

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me the following transcript of an intranet message from William Hague (no, not that one) HMRC's Chief People Officer, concerning 420 HMRC staff who have been "declared surplus".

Apparently, despite now being labelled as "surplus" they can "be proud of their commitment".

May I ask, what is the farking point of showing commitment to an organisation that turns round one day and declares you to be "surplus"?

As Hague says, HMRC will continue to get smaller over time!

"Message from William Hague: reshaping our organisation

6 August 2014

I need to tell you about some significant workforce changes happening in our Department. We've been very open that some roles are ending, because we’re changing where we do our work or the way that we deliver services to customers.

We have done our very best to treat the people affected sensitively and fairly, and wherever possible, we've sought to find them other roles. I can assure you that we’ll continue to do this, but as we get smaller, we know that it’s going to be harder to redeploy everyone.

That’s why, this morning, we met with around 420 colleagues to tell them that they’re being declared surplus and we have invited them to apply for voluntary redundancy. The number includes around 170 people who worked in our Enquiry Centres and around 250 people working in eight offices where we’ve previously announced that lines of business are withdrawing. All these colleagues had already received voluntary exit offers (announced in November and February) and the overwhelming majority are in the redeployment pool.

This week, we've also opened a separate voluntary redundancy scheme for 86 AA-grade ESS Regional Post Room staff in Cardiff and Bootle – something we said we would do in our recent announcement about scanning Personal Tax post.

We’ve looked carefully at all the possible redeployment options for these colleagues, but we’re being up front about the fact that we think their chances of being redeployed are very low.

I’m acutely aware that this will lead to difficult choices for many people – and we’ll be providing one-to-one support to everyone affected. I want to be clear that it’s no reflection on these colleagues or their work. They can rightly be proud of their commitment to our customers and their contribution to the Department.

We’ve said many times that HMRC will continue to get smaller over time, but there will also be new opportunities in areas of work where we still need to expand. Wherever we can, we’ll always try to move people into these if their current role is coming to an end, although the grades and locations where we’re looking to recruit may not always make that possible.

I’d like to briefly update you on some areas where we’re actively recruiting.

Permanent opportunities for FTAs
As you know, we’re keen to provide as many opportunities as possible for FTAs to stay with us if they want to. That’s why, in June and July, we advertised a number of permanent vacancies that only FTAs could apply for. We’re now working through those applications and will let people know the outcome by 21 August.

External recruitment
Based on the applications we’ve received from FTAs, we think we’ll still have some vacancies left in Debt Management and Banking in Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Livingston. So we’re going to advertise for AO roles in these locations on 7 August.

We also think there might be a shortfall of applicants in other business areas and locations, but we won't know that until we’ve completed the FTA allocations. If we need to go ahead with further adverts, it's likely we’ll do so on 20 August.

As always, we won’t bring new recruits into a location until we’ve considered people already working in HMRC. Priority movers, AOs in the redeployment pool, and AAs in the promotion pool with a first, second or third-choice preference for those locations will be considered ahead of any external appointments.

And, even though we’re recruiting externally, these opportunities will remain available to FTAs up until their contracts end in September. If you’re interested and eligible to apply, please keep a look out for these opportunities on Civil Service Jobs.

I will of course keep you fully updated on everything we’ve announced today, as and when we have more news.

William Hague
Chief People Officer"

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"