Refer to Policy

 

"Refer to Policy" or "Why Can't You Answer My Question Quicker?"

There comes a time in the life of every HM Revenue and Customs officer where he has to deal with Policy. There are - to say the least - several policy teams in HMRC, and the relationship between them and the ground staff is as constant as the British weather.

I worked in two main areas of HMRC. As a compliance officer for Cream Tea Duty, and managing processing staff for Slap And Tickle Tax. Over the time, I got to see several different aspects of Policy. 

As some accountants delight in reminding us, tax law is made by Parliament (or until recently, by the EU). One of Policy's jobs is to decide how that law can be put into practice in the real world. That could involve negotiation with trade bodies and the input of experienced compliance officers in Units of Expertise. The Units of Expertise aren't part of Policy as such, but bring practical experience, and take some of the weight off Policy by dealing with day-to-day queries; so, if your trader brings out a knock-off Jaffa Cake, it might be the Unit of Expertise who takes a first look at whether it matches the tax definition of a biscuit...or is it a cake?

So, to get back to the issue of "Why Can't You Answer My Question Quicker?" The short answer is that there's a lot of questions and only a handful of Policy staff. If your question relates to a niche area you might even find that there's only one person who can answer it and they've gone off sick (probably with the stress of trying to deal with a niche that has deepened into a cavern).

In a crack at stemming the flow of questions, Policy insist that you complete a series of tasks. One, read the Guidance. Two, ask your manager. Bad move. As a manager in SATT, I found that most of the staff had worked there longer than me and some had a deep knowledge of the subject. The main trick as a manager was to work out which staff knew what they were talking about, and which hadn't even read the Guidance. 

Once the manager had puzzled over the guidance and confirmed that it didn't answer the question (or as is more likely, presented two contradictory answers to the question) the next step was to submit the question on an online form. This was always a bit of a challenge, because there were several versions of the online form floating around and some particularly hard-pressed policy sections were rumoured to reject submissions if they weren't in the right format. 

If all this makes Policy seem obstructive, it's worth admitting that it's probably learned behaviour after years of compliance officers trying it on. It's not unknown for compliance officers to email a detailed technical question at 9am with the opening line: "I'm meeting the customer tomorrow" and then following up with a phone call at 11am asking if anyone has an answer yet. 

And to state the obvious, Policy has more to do than just answer questions. The relationship between Policy and compliance officers has been variable. In the early days of HMRC, Cream Tea Duty Policy decided they needed consistency in decision-making on a certain issue to do with jam. So, all the rulings were made by Policy, but compliance officers had to "take ownership" and send out a letter saying, "my decision is..." 

Things got even worse when Policy realised that a concession on Clotted Cream was presenting a risk to revenue. They found themselves unable to withdraw it from existing beneficiaries, but let it be known that, if anyone else asked for the concession, it shouldn't be granted. When someone asked, "are you saying we should refuse the concession," the Policy reply was, "No. We can't refuse it. Just don't let them have it."

None of us liked it, but we could see Policy were stuck in a no-win situation. It was just too bad that we were the ones who had to use our slippery tongues to deliver the message.

But to go back to the original question: "Why Can't You Answer My Question Quicker?" The simple answer is that with all the downsizing and digital by default, this is one part of the job that you can't automate and can't farm out to a temp agency. It's a job that requires knowledge and experience. And that doesn't always fit in the plan for the new HMRC. 




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