by René Lavanchy
Revenue and Customs staff are suffering from “huge uncertainty” and struggling to meet targets because of job cuts, the Public and Commercial Services union said this week.
The union was responding to a Cabinet Office report which found that HMRC’s ability to collect tax is being hampered by low morale. Only a quarter of staff surveyed last year said they were proud to work for HMRC, while 89 per cent said they did not think change was being properly managed.
Peter Lockhart, PCS group secretary for HMRC, blamed morale problems on “huge downsizing” and “huge uncertainty for staff in that offices have been closed and staff have been moved from one place to another.”
He told Tribune: “It’s reaching a critical point, where staffing has been reduced by 20,000, a fifth of staff have left in three and a half years I think that’s inevitably placed pressure on some aspects of service delivery.”
The Cabinet Office’s “capability review” found: “Staff morale and engagement are very low and, in some cases, are lower than in 2007… Current efforts by the senior leadership team to tackle poor staff engagement and improve visibility and communications are not working and this is affecting the productivity of staff. HMRC has a very high rate of sickness absence.”
It is the second report to criticise HMRC in two weeks. Last month, MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said the department was expecting to write off £11 billion out of a total £28 billion in uncollected tax and that its collection rate was getting worse.
The PCS has argued for several years that the Government’s programme of job cuts and office closures – at least 250 since 2006, according to the union – are harming the quality of service.
An HMRC spokesperson responded: “A significant majority of HMRC staff want to stay with us and this provides a good foundation on which to build. We recognise that we have a lot to do to improve staff morale and confidence in the department’s management.
“We have already put in place a wide range of measures to address staff concerns and one of our most senior officials is taking forward recently identified issues.”
HMRC was formed in 2005 after Gordon Brown as Chancellor decided to merge the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. The department employs 85,000 staff compared to 108,000 at its predecessors when they merged.
