PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

447WH
26 MARCH 2013 HMRC Closures
448WH
HMRC Closures
[MR JOE BENTON in the Chair]
2.30 pm
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): I thank the
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury for being present
to respond to my debate.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs recently changed
its services: it is trying to become “leaner and more
efficient”. Two weeks ago, we learned that HMRC has
hatched a plan to close all 281 inquiry centres throughout
the country. Last year, those offices gave advice to
more than 2.5 million people, but HMRC is closing
them because the number of visits has halved since 2006
and, it claims, closing them will save £13 million a year.
Other Members would no doubt have their own tales to
tell, were they here to speak, but I invite the Minister to
consider the claims about usage and cost savings as they
apply to the Isle of Wight, because he will find them
completely spurious.
Let us look first at the number of people visiting the
office. The old HMRC office was open from 9 o’clock
to 5 o’clock, five days a week; now it is open only from
10 o’clock to 3.30 pm, three days a week. HMRC shares
a building on the island, Broadlands house, with Jobcentre
Plus, so people with tax problems can often see HMRC
staff through the glass but are unable to speak to them,
which is ludicrous. Furthermore, staff are discouraged
from dealing with clients personally, face to face; instead,
they must floor walk them to a free phone in the next
office and get them to speak to someone in the contact
centre on the mainland. People are not supposed simply
to walk in and get advice: if a taxpayer turns up and
insists on talking to a real live person, staff are supposed
to make an appointment for another time, a rule which
applies even if the office is open and staff are available. I
am pleased that the staff on the Isle of Wight do their
best to be helpful and tend to ignore that particular
edict from on high. None the less, it is little wonder that
figures show fewer personal calls being made to inquiry
centres, because HMRC has done everything it can to
make visiting in person difficult and inconvenient. I
have estimates for the island for the past two years. In
2011-12, there were 4,925 visits to HMRC’s Newport
office and the two outreach offices; in 2012-13, that
figure dropped, but by fewer than 300, so that the total
was 4,630. That is more than 4% of the island’s adult
population visiting HMRC, which is hardly insignificant.
We should also consider the major changes to the tax
and benefits system being introduced by my right hon.
Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Planned changes to child benefit is likely to lead to
1 million extra people filling in self-assessment forms.
In addition, real-time information, as it is called, starts
in two weeks. HMRC itself describes the changes as
“the biggest shakeup of the Pay As You Earn…system in nearly
70 years”.
It cannot be safely assumed that the number of people
needing face-to-face help on the island or elsewhere will
fall.
Let us look at the claimed savings on the Isle of Wight.
The original HMRC office in Upper St James street was
closed and 36 staff moved into the newly built Apex
centre, although taxpayers needed to walk for 10 minutes
from the bus stop or had to drive to reach it. The move
was always planned to be temporary, and in May 2011
the HMRC office moved again, to Broadlands house. It
was anticipated that some staff would relocate to other
HMRC offices within what was described as reasonable
daily travel distances, but that turned out to be a journey
of an hour and a half each way. The majority of staff
lost their jobs, and only nine people now work in the
HMRC office on the island. Broadlands house is also
home to the main Jobcentre Plus office, as I said, and to
the valuation office. HMRC’s nine remaining staff moved
into empty offices in the building, which seems an
eminently sensible solution. The Government already
pay for the upkeep of the entire building, so the costs
are minimal, and it is hard to see what savings could be
made on rent, rates or utility charges from closing the
office. The only other opportunity for substantial savings,
therefore, would be on staff.
In addition to being open to the public three days a
week, the staff carry out what are called personal taxes
operations, which is computerised work generated centrally.
The work can be obtained by HMRC officers anywhere
in the country and includes activities such as changes to
tax codes, addresses and so on. The staff on the Isle of
Wight are justifiably proud to be achieving 100% of
their target. They should be proud: they are an efficient
and experienced team—in fact, the nine staff have a
combined total of 186 years’ experience, which may
well be a record, but certainly represents a large investment
by HMRC in training and development over the years.
HMRC claims that it intends to deploy the staff affected
by the proposed changes elsewhere, and such experienced
officers must be a valuable asset, but there are no
opportunities within reasonable daily travelling distance
from the Isle of Wight. HMRC would therefore be
willing to pay the costs for staff to relocate, not only
paying the costs of removals, legal fees, stamp duty and
so on for a new house, but perhaps even extending to
cover the difference in house prices if staff move to a
more expensive part of the country. HMRC could therefore
incur significant costs for Isle of Wight staff to move
elsewhere to undertake exactly the same work that they
are doing now. The alleged £13 million savings appear
take into account neither that nor the costs of redundancy
packages for staff who cannot be redeployed to another
job or do not wish to move.
As part of the plans, HMRC is going to invest in a
shiny new telephone system costing £34 million—to
save £13 million a year. Looking at HMRC’s record, I
would not put my trust in that working out too well.
HMRC spends money, but that does not necessarily
bring success. Despite HMRC spending £900 million on
customer service, the Public Accounts Committee found
it had “an abysmal record”. Last year, HMRC allowed
20 million telephone calls to go unanswered—a quarter
of all the people who tried to call it. Even its new targets
for call answering are described by our colleagues on
the PAC as “woefully inadequate and unambitious”.
For callers who do get through, there can be other
problems.
I want to raise an issue brought to my attention by
Jonathan Isaby, of that excellent organisation the Taxpayers
Alliance. He received an e-mail from a customer adviser
working in an HMRC call service. Apparently, advisers
do not have targets based on how long a telephone call