April 2024 marks ten years since HM Revenue and Customs breathlessly introduced their “national conversation” called “Building our Future.” Unveiled by chief executive Linda Homer, the one-sided conversation outlined the future shape of HMRC. Government had set priorities to maximise tax revenue, improve services and reduce costs. “We are going to put customers at the heart of everything we do. That means redesigning our processes around them, rather than the taxes they pay or benefits they receive.” Digitisation would automate many processes, cutting the need for some roles. ”We will continue to reduce in size and become even more highly skilled, and we will further consolidate into a small number of very large workplaces or Regional Centres.” “We think it’s an exciting future, but we know it won’t be for everyone.” It was followed up in November 2014 by “Building our Future 2: Continuing the Conversation.”  This led off with some finger-wagging from Linda Homer. “We’ve pic...

Fed up of waiting for a reply? Not satisfied with the service you got? Will making a complaint solve your problem? It might do, IF your complaint is about something that can be fixed. But, the more punters complain, the more it takes people away from their day-to-day work.  It might be that complaints are over-rated. Punters who get their problems fixed by complaining are more likely to recommend it as a solution. But, from what I remember, for every complaint where there was a problem that could be solved, there was another where the only answer was that HRMC had done everything right. You may not like the way it was done, but if it was done within the rules, that was the end of it. (Hand on heart, when I worked for Large Business , I don't recall any complaints. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe it was because each business had a Customer Relationship Manager they could ring up to talk things over with. Maybe that sounds unfair.  Maybe the man in the street could do with having so...

 A lot of people seem to think of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as an interchangeable hive, like "The Borg" in Star Trek. If there's no-one available from the SATT section, pull someone in from CTD and they'll sort your problem out. That's not surprising, since it matches the aspiration of the Cabinet Office with its 'One Civil Service' programme where all Civil Servants will eventually be Lego people, working out of five big offices in the larger UK cities. But we're not there yet. To continue with the TV theme, at the moment HMRC is like a collection of soap operas. While "Coronation Street", "Eastenders" and "Emmerdale" might have common factors (serial killers, for instance), they all have their individual quirks and characteristics. The same applies to the administration of the different taxes and duties. You can't just roll from one to the other.  If you phone up the Rovers Return, and ask to speak to Sharon Mitc...