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18 July 2007 : Column 76WH—continued
I want to make a couple of additional points. As has been said, the proposal is that all the offices in Derbyshire should close, and the implications of that are similar to
those of the proposed closure of both the medical assessment centres in Derbyshire. The proposal has therefore created a lot of local concern about the county’s economy, and there is the issue of whether Government offices are seen to provide a service in our county.
On the service issue, it is proposed to continue the customer inquiry service at a nearby venue. However, the tax office at Horsefair house has received considerable national recognition for the quality of its work and particularly for the outreach work that it has done in the past. At the moment, there is a team of four face-to-face staff, which includes full-time staff members and a part-time member who works only during term time. Of the full-time staff, one has child care responsibilities and another works a nine-day fortnight. They work their hours to fit their responsibilities, but if they are now being told that they can do those jobs only if they are prepared to work a different set of hours, they will lose their jobs. Furthermore, they currently require back-up from processing staff to provide cover, but it is proposed to move the processing staff to Nottingham. The proposals will therefore have a detrimental effect both on staff and the commitments made to them and on the service that is provided.
Given the nature of their jobs, staff in the Alfreton area are very long serving and experienced. It is easier to get other jobs in urban areas, so people do not have the same length of service or level of expertise, and that fact should also be taken into account. I am told that staff turnover at Alfreton is much lower than at larger offices, where HMRC competes with other employers, and that the average length of service at Alfreton is 20 years. There is therefore a range of arguments, which I hope that the Minister will take seriously.
I am also concerned that decisions are being pre-empted. We are told that no jobs will be lost directly as a result of the review, but that is just not true. People at the Alfreton office are being told that volunteers are still being sought to move to the strategic sites. What are staff in such offices meant to do? Are they meant to assume—those who are able to move—that there will be no jobs for them if they do not take that offer up now? That pre-empts what will happen, and staffing levels will potentially be wound down to the point where the office closes and those who cannot move will be left behind. That is causing a lot of concern.
At least one member of staff has already been told that she is pre-surplus because her work in dealing with the estate has been moved to Nottingham. That pre-empts any decision to close the Alfreton office, which we are told has not been taken.
Mrs. Dean: As my hon. Friend might be aware—this might apply to her constituents as well—one of my constituents was told:
“If you wish to await the outcome of the regional reviews, you can do so but be aware that the vacancies that exist in some of our Strategic Sites may be filled”.
Judy Mallaber: Yes, I have heard similar things, but we are told that no jobs will be directly lost as a result of the review. That puts people in considerable uncertainty.
Another constituent, who works in the Nottingham offices, which are meant to carry on, has been told that the type of job that she does will in future be split across
six offices, instead of seven. Again, those involved do not know whether they will be offered anything else; they have been told half a story and have been left in considerable confusion.
As I say, decisions seem to have been pre-empted. As I mentioned, management told staff who work face to face a fortnight ago that it wanted only those who can make the commitment to work the necessary hours, and that goes against equal opportunities commitments. There is therefore a great deal of uncertainty, and I am concerned that despite commitments that no decisions have been made, management is operating in such a way as to pre-empt any decisions.
I mentioned my concern about the consultation responses. As a result of criticisms at our meeting with HMRC management and staff, we were told that management would go back and look at the responses, but the consultation summary bears no relationship to the submissions that were made. On Alfreton, for example, the summary says that some staff have concerns about travelling to Nottingham, which would have “an effect” on their work-life balance. Yes, it would have an effect on their work-life balance: the work bit would go, as a number of those people just cannot travel in the way that is suggested, because of the length of the journey and the connections, which they cannot make. The summary is just a distortion of what was said. We said they would not be able to make the change. It would not just affect their work-life balance; their work-life balance is such that their commitments make it impossible.
The consultation document also contains, for some reason, a quotation—we do not know where it comes from—which is quite complimentary; it does not include the comments from people who are very critical about the effect on service. I advise scepticism in studying the consultation responses, unless there have been substantial changes. I intend to write to the Financial Secretary and send her my response again.
I have a couple of examples of the situation of people in the Alfreton office with regard to travel. I have obtained some case studies. One relates to someone who worked there 30 hours a week, enabling her to drop off her daughter at school for 8.40 am and pick her up at 3.30 pm. She does not drive, so if the office closed she would have to get the bus to Nottingham from her home in Swanwick. Incidentally the main fast bus service has just closed. We hope that we shall get a substitute service, or I do not know what my constituent will do. However, when she wrote about her situation, she said, on the assumption that the Red Arrow service would still be functioning, that her travelling time would be three hours a day. She calculated that to get her hours in she would not be returning home until 6.50 pm. She did not know whether she would be able to get a child minder, which she would have to do to cover that time.
Another example concerns a single parent who cannot drop her daughter off at the child minder’s home before 8 o’clock. She cannot drive, so she would have to go by bus or catch the train, which is only hourly. There is only an hourly bus service to Alfreton from where she lives. The trains from Alfreton to Nottingham run hourly. Even if she managed to catch the 9 o’clock train from Alfreton she could not get her hours in, so, again, she would have to stop working. I have also collected
examples of people with disabilities; in the case of one who is registered disabled it would not be possible to get to the Nottingham office.
There are serious difficulties about the Alfreton office. I am concerned about the proposal to close all the Derbyshire offices, and about the way in which the management is now operating, which is putting great pressure on staff to take decisions without knowing the full facts about what is to happen, and is also pre-empting decisions. I know that the Financial Secretary has a difficult job, which I do not envy her, but I urge her to take on board the points that I have made.
10.22 am
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne) (LD): I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) on securing the debate. She spoke powerfully about the impact that the proposed changes will have on her constituents, but she has also provided an opportunity for many other Members of Parliament to raise concerns about how they will affect their constituencies. I am sure that the story that we have heard today will echo not only across the east midlands but across the country, because there is widespread concern about the impact of the proposals to rationalise HMRC offices. In my constituency, office closures are proposed and the staff and the wider community are concerned about the effect that they will have.
I do not think that anyone present in the Chamber objects to the principle of what the Government have said they want to achieve. It is right that the Government should closely examine the work that civil servants do, whether for national or local government, and determine whether they are doing it as efficiently as possible, so that taxpayers can see that public services give value for money. If efficiency savings can be made, that is to be welcomed. However, there is concern about whether the savings that are being discussed will be cost-effective, and whether there will be an effect on front-line services.
We have clearly heard that staff are worried about the viability of their jobs, the difficulties that the changes will present them with in such matters as travel arrangements, and whether the consultation process was fair and representative. The result is concern that pre-emptive action is being taken, ahead of the announcement of any decisions at the beginning of the autumn; that there will be a continuing period of uncertainty; and even that what is happening is salami-slicing—the beginning, rather than the end, of a process that will cast the relevant services into even greater uncertainty. Hon. Members have spoken at length about specific staff worries, and I want to broaden out my concerns about the impact that the changes may have on such matters as the local community, government, and the individuals who use the services.
As to the possible effect on the community, hon. Members have already discussed people’s views about difficulty in getting access to services or their work. People will have further to travel, and the emphasis on the distance between the two offices is not necessarily fair. In both cases, people will be travelling to the offices; there will be journeys to be made to, as well as
between, those destinations. That needs to be taken into consideration, along with the difficulties that have been mentioned about the relative pros and cons of trying to make the necessary journeys by public transport—or even by car, where there is significant traffic congestion.
I am concerned about the impact that any job losses will have on job availability in deprived areas. Access to quality jobs is important to the regeneration of any area. Perhaps I may draw a parallel between what has been described today and the situation in my constituency, where the tax office jobs are critical in ensuring not only access to high-quality jobs but footfall in the town. Offices providing high-quality jobs lead to money being spent in towns every day, and the additional revenue has a beneficial impact on the town. If that effect is removed, not only jobs but spending will go from the town centres. I hope that the Government take that into account when they consider possible closures.
We have heard in great detail about the possible effect of closures on access to jobs for women, in particular. Many of the jobs are part-time and, as we have heard, are held by people with responsibilities to families as carers. Any changes will affect whether they consider remaining in their job a viable option, given all their other commitments outside work. Of course, if people must travel further, there will be an environmental impact. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) spoke clearly about the knock-on effect. I wonder what cross-departmental thinking is going on about issues such as regeneration and the impact on the environment.
It seems that there is a drive to centralise services while other Departments are talking about decentralising them, and a proposal to reduce women’s access to jobs while other Departments are talking about the need to ensure equality of access to jobs—and not just for women but for disabled people and other groups. Will there be a loss of community intelligence? One of the key assets of many tax offices is their local knowledge. They know the individuals that they will speak to. If people must travel a long way, that important community connection will be lost.
As to the effect on government, the Government think that the changes will bring about efficiency savings and make greater resources available. Will the Financial Secretary elaborate on the contribution that she thinks the changes will make to the Gershon review? What impact will they have on wider plans to decentralise jobs, and on local revenue collection? Of course, there is a detection and deterrence element to the work, and a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done, taking into account the cost of providing the jobs and the benefit that they provide by bringing additional taxation revenue into the Treasury. Does the Financial Secretary expect that evasion may increase and the Treasury’s ability to detect it may decrease as a result of some of the changes?
I also want to ask the Minister about equality. Have the Government made any assessment of the impact that these decisions will have on women’s access to the workplace? What will happen to the people in Burton, where there is a high level of disability employment? Will that change as a result of the proposals? There is undoubtedly massive excess office capacity on many of these sites, and of course there is a need for rationalisation, but I wonder whether the scope for capital savings will be matched by similar revenue savings.
The theme that comes out of the debate is that people’s interaction with the state is increasingly expected to be faceless and done on the internet or by telephone. For many people that is absolutely fine and is the most convenient and straightforward way of doing things, but what happens when the choice is taken away? Some people, when they have a serious problem, are reassured by being able to sit down with an individual who is empowered to take a decision about their case and who they know has a personal interest in it. That is important, and there are concerns that that aspect will be lost, because it will become increasingly difficult to have that interaction under the changes.
Increasing numbers of my constituents come to my surgeries about problems with the Child Support Agency, the tax credit office and other Government agencies. People go to their MP in absolute frustration that they cannot speak to an individual in person to sort out their problem, or even speak consistently to the same individual on the phone. They go to their MP because it is their only opportunity to have a face-to-face interaction with the state on an issue that is affecting their lives, often in a massive way. I currently have the odd case regarding the local tax offices, but not many. I am concerned that we will not see the impact of the changes until further down the line when, suddenly, in addition to the tax credit and Child Support Agency cases that come in, we will see individuals who are having problems with their tax assessment, who would previously have been able to talk through their problems face to face with an individual but have lost that opportunity.
I understand that a face-to-face presence is to be maintained in many offices, but there are concerns that the changes will be the beginning of a process, not the end, and that we will see what we have seen with jobcentre closures: first, staff numbers are reduced, then opening hours are reduced and then, all of a sudden, we see a proposal for closure. We need reassurances from the Minister that that will not be the case in these areas.
I conclude by asking the Minister a few more questions. What work is being done at a cross-departmental level and with local authorities regarding spare office capacity and the need to provide services at a local, community level? Are they considering providing a variety of local services to make the most efficient use of work space and maintain a local presence? What was the decision-making process about where to centralise? Back in May, the Derby Evening Telegraph described a process whereby a circle was drawn around Nottingham and everything within that circle was drawn in. Is that what happened and was any account taken of local transport options? I have already raised my concerns about the salami-slicing approach. Will the Minister estimate the likely overall cost savings? Has there been a cost-benefit analysis of the savings represented by the job cuts balanced against the revenue that will be forgone as a result of the cuts?
Members of staff and the wider public are uneasy about the climate of uncertainty regarding the proposed closures, and the hon. Member for Burton has done her constituency a service in securing the debate. This is an opportunity for the Minister to provide greater certainty, and everyone will be pleased to hear further reassurances that the consultation process will have an impact on the results and on the autumn proposals.
10.34 am
Mr. David Gauke (South-West Hertfordshire) (Con): It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mr. Cummings. I think that this is the first time I have spoken in this Chamber with you in the Chair—I am more used to the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) being in the Chair. I congratulate her on securing this very useful debate and on the passion and understanding that she showed in setting out her case. She put the perspective of the staff who work in Burton very strongly, and spoke in particular about disabilities and work-life balance, which other hon. Members have mentioned.
We must all acknowledge, as some hon. Members have, that it is incumbent on HMRC to organise its affairs in the most efficient manner possible, and that there is a place for rationalisation where it has additional office capacity. I should like to address more fully a point that the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) made in his intervention, which was not discussed in great detail, about customer services. I am not entirely sure about calling taxpayers “customers”. I know that we all use that term, but I am not sure that they all feel like customers when their tax is taken from them.
This is a big issue in the east midlands. Hon. Members have pointed out that the programme stretches across the country, and there have been previous debates on how it will affect Cornwall and Kettering. However, feelings are strong in the east midlands, with which I include Staffordshire, even though it is in the west midlands. The Derby Evening Telegraph has been very vigorous in defending the existing tax offices through its “Hands Off Our Taxmen” campaign.
The reorganisation is driven partly by a desire to find efficiency savings. There are targets to reduce the number of staff in HMRC, which were driven by Gershon and, subsequently, the Lyons report. We must consider the matter carefully. It is entirely reasonable for Parliament to scrutinise whether the service to the “customer” is being maintained. Last December, the former Paymaster General answered a parliamentary question about the impact of the tax office closure programme on the administration of tax credits and employer end-of-year returns. She began her reply by stating:
“HMRC do not have a tax office closure plan.”
I think that we know different now. She went on:
“The reorganisation aims to improve both efficiency and customer service in all areas of HMRC.”—[Official Report, 19 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 1744W.]
That is clearly a welcome objective, but we must ask whether it is being achieved.
When I was preparing for this debate, I looked at the evidence given to the Treasury Select Committee on 25 April by a number of experts in the field. Frank Haskew, head of the tax faculty at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, said that he was
“very concerned about HMRC’s cost reduction programme and efficiency savings and that it is too much of a task for HMRC to actually improve services.”
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