House of Commons - Administration and expenditure of the Chancellor's departments, 2008-09

Administration and expenditure of the Chancellor's departments, 2008-09 - Treasury Contents

4 HMRC

Background

43. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was formed in April 2005 when the Inland Revenue merged with HM Customs and Excise. The Department is responsible for administering the UK tax system, collecting revenue and paying entitlements. During 2008-09, as we noted in section 2, HMRC had a particularly challenging working environment. The onset of recession made HMRC's prime tasks of collecting revenue and paying entitlements more difficult, whilst its Transformation Programme continued to drive the department to improve performance whilst delivering substantial efficiency savings at the same time. During our inquiry, we sought to establish whether HMRC was rising to these formidable challenges or whether it was at risk of sinking beneath them. Accordingly, in this section we assess HMRC's performance during 2008-09 and look at the three areas of great risk if performance is to be improved in the future: staff morale; its IT systems; and, its contract with Mapeley.

Performance—DSO1

44. We looked first at HMRC's performance against its first Departmental Strategic Objective (DSO1—to improve the extent to which individuals and businesses pay the amount of tax due and receive the credits and payments to which they were entitled. On the tax collection side, the total revenue collected by HMRC fell from £457.4 billion in 2007-08 to £435.7 billion in 2008-09, a decrease of 4.7% or £21.7bn. The total revenue collected as a percentage of GDP also fell from 32.2% in 2007-08 to 30.5% in 2008-09. We asked Chief Executive Lesley Strathie, whether this outcome was unavoidable given declining economic performance or whether it reflected increased tax avoidance. She replied that:

She argued further that there was "lots of evidence"[76] to show that HMRC's anti-avoidance strategy was working. This is though not reflected in the Annual Report which records[77] that it is too early to give an assessment of HMRC's efforts to increase tax and National Insurance contributions actually received relative to the amounts that should be received. This paucity of milestone data is echoed elsewhere, and we comment further on this in subsequent paragraphs. More reassuringly, during our inquiry into the Pre-Budget Report, John Whiting, Tax Policy Director, Chartered Institute of Taxation and Low Incomes, also affirmed that he found the Department's anti-avoidance strategies to be "basically pretty effective."[78]

45. We looked next at HMRC's performance with regard to paying-out entitlements. Specifically we examined Working Tax Credits, the take up of which is—like tax avoidance above—one of the performance indicators for DSO1. Robert Summersgill, HMRC Director Benefits and Credit, told us that HMRC's target here is by 2010-11 to increase the take up of Working Tax Credit from a 2006-07 baseline of 57% to "into the 60s,"[79] which would be a caseload increase of "100,000 by spring 2011."[80]

46. Richard Summersgill, explained why the base-line take up of working tax credit, a benefit for "people who do not have caring responsibilities for children anymore"[81] was so much lower than take-up for child tax credit (around 80% take-up) and for child benefit (around 90% take-up), observing that:

…there are two particular groups that we are trying to focus on: couples over 50 and young men over 25 which tend to be the groups in particular that are more resistant to taking up working tax credit. Quite a lot of our activity is focused at those groups.

47. We were somewhat concerned to note that HMRC does not intend to publish an indication of progress for working tax credit take-up until Spring 2010. As we have also previously noted, there is a similar lack of transparency in HMRC's Annual Report on tax avoidance. In all, the Annual Report records no milestones against three out of the four performance indicators for DSO1. Furthermore, the one milestone that is recorded— progress with regard to reducing the level of incorrect tax credit payments made as a result of error and fraud—dates back to 2007-08 so is hardly an indicator of current performance. The box below provides a summary:

DSO1 - Overall summary - Not yet assessed

Indicator 1

Latest Assessment: It is too early to give an assessment but provisional estimates will be published in the Autumn Performance Report 2009.

Indicator 2: By 2010-11 reduce the level of incorrect tax credit payments made as a result of error and fraud as a percentage of finalised entitlement, to no more than 5%.

Latest Assessment: Because this is an absolute measure (5% of the finalised entitlement) no baseline is needed. Latest annual assessment for 2007-08 published in July 2009 shows a central estimate for the level of error and fraud at 8.6%. As this result reflects a period prior to the implementation of our new strategy this is not unexpected and we will still expect to meet our target of reducing error and fraud to 5% by March 2011.

Indicator 3: By 2010-11, increase the take up of Working Tax Credits

Latest Assessment: Progress will be measures against the 2006-07 baseline of 57% published in the 'Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit Take-up rates' document. The next measurement point will be Spring 2010. Our internal indicators show that we are on track to deliver this indicator. This DSO has been supplemented with the Budget announcement that we will increase the number WTC only claimants, a sub-set of those claiming WTC, by 100,000 by March 2011.

Indicator 4: By 2010-11, at least maintain take up levels of Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit

Latest Assessment: Progress for at least maintaining take up rates for Child Tax Credits (CTC) and Child Benefit (CB). Take up will be measured against the 2006-07 baselines of 81% for CTC published in the 'Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit Take-up rates' document and 96% for CB, published in the Autumn Performance Report 2008. The latest figures available are for 2006-07. Our next measurement point will be Spring 2010.

48. We asked HMRC whether this was acceptable, both in terms of transparency and in terms of its own ability to track progress. Chief Executive Lesley Strathie replied that:

Affirming that HMRC in place sufficient measures to indicate the Department's progress against its milestones, she told us that:

…as an executive team in HMRC, we have the data flows once a month where we take a view from those measures whether we think we are on course or not. If we look at the £7 billion target [for reducing tax avoidance losses between 2008-0-9 and 2010-11]" we have over a number of years to close the tax gap then that is clearly something where we measure our performance and take a judgement of the volatility and, month by month, whether that is telling us we are on target or not."

49. The absence of regular public reporting on milestones by HMRC is a major obstacle to both effective scrutiny and performance. We believe that HMRC must publish data regularly to chart its level of progress against DSO1 indicators; and set these out in its Annual Reports. We believe this is essential for the tax gaps to be closed and for the assessment accuracy and take-up of the working tax credit to be improved, especially for those without children, and those whose incomes and jobs are volatile and constantly changing.

Performance—DSO2

50. HMRC's second DSO is to improve customers' experience of HMRC and improve the UK business environment. This DSO has two outcomes—understanding customers and their needs, and making it easy for customers to get things right. HMRC reported strong progress against these outcomes. However, there are areas of concern. As the table below shows, HMRC recorded 87,179 customer complaints in 2008-09, an increase of 5,804 or 7% on 2007-08. In some areas, such as National Operational Services, and Stamps and Taxes, there has been a considerable fall in complaints. In other areas however, there have been substantial increases: Call Centre complaints have risen by 1,739 or 29%: Processing Office complaints have risen by 4,797 or 38%; and Online Service complaints have risen by 929 or 181%:

Table 5: Number of complaints received by HMRC by business activity[83]

Business Activity	2007-08	2008-09
Charities Assets and Residence	801	1,134
Child Benefit Office	2,612	2,374
Contact Centres	5,905	7,644
Debt Management and Banking	4,204	4,267
Enquiry Centres	99	65
Local Compliance	2,583	2,275
Law Enforcement	1,567	1,443
Processing Offices	12,467	17,264
National Teams & Special Civil Investigation	2,350	1,140
National Insurance Contributions	4,496	3,597
National Operational Services	1,232	580
Online Services	514	1,443
Stamps and Taxes	1,867	584
Tax Credit Offices	38,528	41,107
Valuation Office Agency	*2,150	2,362
Totals	81,375	87,179
Note: we paid redress of £2.69m, in respect of our mistakes and unreasonable delays compared to £2.65m paid during 2007-08 and £2.46m paid during 2006-07. This is based on ex-gratia and ex-statutory redress payments paid in the year.

51. Lesley Strathie told us that "a very large chunk of those complaints have been about rudeness or tone or the way that we handled them rather than the subject matter in the first instance"[84] and emphasised that "one of the steps we have taken on the analysis of the numbers…is to address the manner in which we deal with people".[85]

52. Contact centres are a key point of customer interaction. Although she told us that "our contact centres have come on in leaps and bounds in this past year", complaints have gone up and, perhaps not unrelated to this, on average across 2008-09, HMRC Contact Centres answered only 57% of all call attempts to their helplines. HMRC state that their performance is significantly affected by three key peaks of contact—Tax Credits Renewals (April to August), Child Benefit and return to education notifications (August and September) and the Self Assessment filing deadline (January), but that performance outside these peaks is better and that they answered 75% of call attempts for all but three weeks in the non-peak period. Even this off-peak rate though falls short, by a considerable margin, of their target to answer more than 90% of all call attempts by April 2011. Furthermore, the peak times themselves account in total for seven months—over half the year.

53. We were concerned that if the across year average was 57%, and the off-peak average was 75%, the average call response rates for the peak periods—not published by HMRC— must have been very low indeed. At our request, HMRC provided a more detailed break-down—published below—which includes a call response rate low of 33% for July 08. The table also substantiates the Chief Executive's claim that HMRC had "moved the call answering up quite a bit since then [2008-09],"[86] though there is still some way to go before the response rate can be said to be at an acceptable level.

Table 6: HMRC Call Response rates 2008-09 & 2009-10[87]

Month	Peak Period (highlighted)	% Call Attempts Answered 08/09	% Call Attempts Answered 09/10
Apr	New Tax Year - PAYE Coding / Tax Credit Renewals	56%	77%
May	PAYE Coding / Tax Credit Renewals	44%	68%
Jun	Tax Credit Renewals	50%	80%
Jul	Tax Credit Renewals	33%	68%
Aug	Tax Credit Terminations and Child Benefit Full Time Non Advanced Education (FTNAE) Notifications	66%	73%
Sep	Child Benefit FTNAE Notifications	52%	74%
Oct		76%
Nov		86%
Dec		85%
Jan	Online Services / Taxes Helplines Final Filing date for SA Tax Returns	61%
Feb		84%
Mar		78%
Total		57%

54. In its Annual Report 2009, HMRC claims[88] that it is hitting its target to improve customers' experience, and that "results indicate that customer satisfaction exceeds our target levels."[89] We find it hard to reconcile these claims with its customer complaint levels and call response rates. Whilst we accept that these are not the whole picture, we urge HMRC to reflect on whether customer experiences of HMRC are yet improving as much as the DSO2 "strong progress" summary implies. In particular, call response rates—though improving—remain at unacceptably low levels. The April 2011 target of answering 90% of calls remains challenging and will continue to require the attention of senior management.

HMRC's transformation programme

55. Since its birth in 2005, HMRC has been a Department constantly going through changes. It has reduced its staff numbers by over 17,000 over a period of five years, and has relocated offices to reach further efficiency targets. Nor is this process yet at an end.

56. The transformation programme has been, and continues to be, very challenging for HMRC. There is evidence that it has had a knock-on effect on performance. As we noted with concern in a previous report,[90] eight out of ten areas assessed under HMRC's 2007 Capability Review required further development. We asked Chief Executive Lesley Strathie for her assessment of where HMRC stood two years after the Capability Review. She replied that "we feel that we have moved forward enormously but we still recognise that there is a lot more to do and we have plans about what we will do."[91] She felt that "in most areas we have moved forward at least one level and in a couple of areas we think we have moved forward two."[92] Her Minister, the Rt Hon Stephens Timms MP was equally upbeat, telling us that "HMRC has achieved an extraordinary amount in a relatively short time under enormous pressure."[93]

57. When she gave evidence in October, she noted that the Cabinet Office capability team was in the process of conducting a two year re-review, and would be reporting on their self-assessment shortly. The Capability Re-Review was subsequently published in December 09, providing only partial vindication of her stance. Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service congratulated HMRC on making good progress over the two years, noting in particular its effectiveness in providing well-structured and practical support in response to the changing economic conditions. However, whilst she had hoped that HMRC would move forward in most areas, it has in fact only moved forward in three out of ten. Also, whilst the Chief Executive had hoped that HMRC would move forward two categories in two areas, HMRC has in fact moved forward two categories in only one—'set direction'. Seven 'development areas' remain of which one— 'ignite passion, pace and drive'—is assessed as an 'urgent' development area. Sir Gus O'Donnell also notes that "HMRC faces a huge transformation challenge which will take both time and leadership attention, in particular to rebuild staff confidence in HMRC's leadership and inspire staff to be a part of HMRC's future."[94]

58. On balance, performance at HMRC remains mixed with considerable room for improvement, and considerable challenges remain to be overcome if HMRC is to achieve this improvement. In the remainder of this section, we take a closer look at three of the main challenges.

Staff morale

59. In a previous report, drawing on an NAO assessment of HMRC's transformation programme,[95] we observed that:

More recently, the Cabinet Office Capability Re-review also highlighted the need to rebuild staff confidence and inspire staff. It is understandable that staff morale at HMRC should be fragile. Since its conception, HMRC has been a Department under pressure to find efficiencies by way of staff reductions and relocations. The table below shows the number of full time equivalents in post over the past five years. Some 16,818 full time posts will have been removed by the end of 2008-09 since 2004-05, and a further 3,811 will be cut in the twelve months to the end of 2009-10:

Table 7: HMRC Staffing Numbers[97]

	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09 (plans)	2009-10 (plans)
Permanent staff	95,896	98,821	95,337	91,373	85,769	82,003	78,192
Overtime	1,452	822	783	750	1,032	503	503
Total	97,348	99,643	96,120	92,123	86,801	82,506	78,695

Table excludes Valuation Office Agency staff. 2003-04 figures are pre-merge. 2009-10 planned figures include Detection/UKBA

60. In view of our previous conclusions, we were particularly concerned by the dire results for HMRC of a cross-Government staff survey pilot study conducted in February 2009. This survey assessed employee engagement at HMRC both in percentage terms and ranked against the responses of staff in ten other Government Departments.

61. Out of the 67 ranked questions, HMRC is top in relation to 2 questions regarding data handling and data security, which does at least provide an indication that lessons have been learnt since the loss of the child benefit data of 25 million people in 2007-08. However, HMRC is ranked 10^th (out of 11) for 22 questions, and 11^th for 31 questions. The following box captures some of the low-lights:

HMRC as a whole is well managed—11% positive.

HMRC ranks 11^th out of 11 Departments and this score is 16% lower than the median score across the other Departments taking part.

I feel that change is well managed in HMRC

HMRC ranks 11^th out of 11 Departments and this score is 9% lower than the median score across the other Departments.

When changes are made they are usually for the better—9% positive.

HMRC ranks 11^th out of 11 Departments and this is 10% lower than the median score across the other Departments.

Overall, I have confidence in the Senior Civil Servants in HMRC—11% positive.

HMRC ranks 11^th out of 11 Departments and this score is 21% lower than the median score across the other Departments.

HMRC energises me to 'go the extra mile'—12% positive.

HMRC ranks 11^th out of 11 Departments and this is 17% lower than the median score across the other Departments.

- I have confidence in the decisions my line manager makes—56% positive.

HMRC ranks 10^th out of 11 Departments and this score is 12% lower than the median score across the other Departments.

- My line manager motivates and inspires me to be more effective in my job—47% positive.

HMRC ranks 10^th out of 11 Departments and this score is 10% lower than the median score across the other Departments.

- The Employee Engagement score, consisting of three elements (speaking positively about the organisation, wishing to stay, and going the extra mile) was 32%.

This is 16% lower than the median score across the 11 Government Departments.

62. We asked the Chief Executive what she could say to convince us that HMRC senior management was taking its staff with them. She replied, frankly, that "in short, the survey tells us we are not and we take that incredibly seriously."[98] A further challenge she drew out was that, not only does she have an unhappy workforce, she has an unhappy workforce that intends to stay with the organisation.

63. We questioned her as to what effect a disengaged workforce with poor morale was having on performance—whether , for instance, HMRC had lost out on tax revenue. She replied that "I do not believe so, but I do not know so."[99] Her Minister, the Rt Hon Stephen Timms also stated that he did not have a projection for tax collection losses due to low morale[100] but he did affirm that "the evidence that high morale leads to good performance is compelling."[101]

64. Finally, we asked Lesley Strathie what plans she had in place to address the morale— and performance—issues raised by the survey. She recognised that her workforce needed clarity "about whether they have a future in the department, what that future looks like…"[102], and stressed that "my job, I believe, is to be absolutely honest with our people"[103] including "if at the end of the day there is not a job."[104] She also saw a need to build up the tax profession to "upskill and accredit our people."[105] She acknowledged too that management needed to do more, telling us that "many of our managers do not believe they need to change, and clearly we all need to change."[106] This is particularly concerning, given that much of the most severe criticism in the survey is aimed at management, especially senior management.

65. Without downplaying the significance of the survey, she also suggested that it did not tell the whole story:

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66. We are deeply concerned about employee engagement at HMRC and its effect on performance. We accept that the relatively new senior management team is aware of the issue, and takes its implications seriously. Nonetheless, we are deeply troubled by the apparent absence of any detailed plan to ameliorate the situation. We recommend that HMRC's management re-double their efforts to re-engage with their workforce, and publish a clear and detailed plan to provide focus and direction to their actions. We will continue to monitor this issue closely.

67. We have assessed HMRC's IT performance in previous reports. HMRC is a large organisation dealing with a wide range of taxes. In a note to the Committee, it stated that there are 92 systems which are critical to HMRC's core processes. Many of these IT systems have had substantial investment in recent years, but progress has been uneven.

68. In a previous report,[108] we recommended that HMRC improve its contracts with IT providers, noting that one new IT system had been delayed by a year. One consequence of this delay is that, during 2008-09, the number of open cases (where a case requires manual clerical attention) increased from 16.2 million in 2007-08 to 35 million. Against this background, we were surprised to see HMRC declare in its Annual Report that "HMRC has been hailed as a shining example of how to use technology to take government services to a new level."[109] Lesley Strathie, however, remained bullish about HMRC's IT progress, including a new agreement with its suppliers under the Aspire contract "which will significantly reduce cost for department over the coming years."[110]

69. Future performance at HMRC is highly dependent upon improvements to its IT systems. We will continue to monitor progress of its IT up-grading progress, including the new Aspire contract.

Mapeley contract

70. In 2001 the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise signed a 20-year contract with Mapeley STEPS Contractor Limited, in order to rationalise its estate. Under the terms of the contract, HMRC can hand over to Mapeley up to 60% of its estate and incur no penalties, so long as Mapeley receives 12 months notice for each transfer. There is an annual limit of how much space the Department can return to Mapeley in one year, but if this allowance is not used it can be rolled forwards to the following year.

71. Under the STEPS deal (the Strategic Transfer of the Estate to the Private Sector), the Department sold 132 freehold properties to Mapeley and now leases them back. Mapeley manages these, and 459 properties the Department leases from third-party landlords, and provides facilities management and maintenance services on the total 591 properties in return for fixed monthly payments from the Department.

72. Once transferred, Mapeley takes on all the risk of running the properties, and any risks associated with fluctuations in value of the estate. At one level, this appears a very good contract for HMRC, giving it a high degree of flexibility with a sizeable chunk of risk transferred to Mapeley. We have, however, expressed concern about Mapeley's performance in previous reports—for instance last year[111] we expressed concern about Mapeley's building maintenance record. Moreover, between our evidence session with HMRC and our evidence session with Ministers, the NAO published a report into the Mapeley deal[112] which drew attention to significant underlying weaknesses.

73. The NAO found that Mapeley's bid was £500 million cheaper than other bids. Whilst, therefore HMRC received a good price for the contract, there were risks associated with the aggressively low nature of Mapeley's bid and its status as a new company entering the market. Mapeley's bid was based on speculative returns from increases in property values over the 20 years, and expected minimal operating profits. It was not altogether surprising therefore that, seven months into the contract, Mapeley approached HMRC with cash problems. In more recent years, HMRC has increased the number of properties it wishes to vacate. However, the NAO found that HMRC did not consider the financial impact of this on Mapeley or the potential consequences for HMRC:

113

The NAO report accepts that HMRC has taken some measures to improve its management of the contract, but stresses that there is still not a fully effective partnership in place.

74. We put it to the Financial Secretary that the Government had still fully to grasp the downside risks of this contract. He replied that:

114

We pressed him on Mapeley's capacity to absorb a large amount of property being transferred back to it in a recession. He responded that "we are certainly aware of those challenges, which are indeed clear, and we are aware of the risks that they pose to Mapeley, and so HMRC has carried out quite a lot of work to understand the nature of the financial risks to Mapeley and how they can be addressed."[115] We further sought clarity as to whether, as the NAO had concluded, HMRC had yet to agree a way forward with Mapeley that avoided placing too much strain on the contract whilst preserving benefit for HMRC. In supplementary written evidence, the Government informed us that:

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The supplementary evidence concludes that "through this planning and the work on Mapeley's financial viability, HMRC's Executive Committee is confident in its ability to manage any risks to its estates management plans effectively."[117]

75. It seems clear from the recent NAO report into the HMRC contract with Mapeley, that HMRC has been slow to consider the possibility that the terms of the contract could put the latter under immense financial strain. It appears that HMRC believed it had transferred all substantive risks to Mapeley, and did not envisage the possibility of the risks returning to them if Mapeley should default. We accept HMRC is now taking steps to improve its management of the contract. We remain to be convinced, however, that sufficient risk management, including a clear and mutually beneficial way forward, is yet in place, and will return to this topic in future evidence sessions.

75 Q 178 Back

76 Q 181 Back

77 DSO1 Indicator 1: By 2010-11 increase tax and National Insurance contributions actually received relative to the amounts that should be received, achieving over 2008-09 to 2010-11 at least the levels set out in the Public Service Agreement targets for 2007-08 Back

78 Treasury Committee, Fourth Report of Session 2009-10, Pre-Budget Report 2009, HC 180 Back

79 Q 212 Back

80 Q 212 Back

81 Q 211 Back

82 Q 194 Back

83 HM Revenue and Customs, Departmental Report 2009, July 2009, Cm 7591, p 84 Back

84 Q 200 Back

85 Q 200 Back

86 Q 204 Back