HM Revenue and Customs has announced a new era of being
"open and honest" about its IT and other problems, after a Computer
Weekly campaign to improve the tax system by promoting transparency
and accountability.
Computer Weekly has argued that HMRC is unlikely to succeed in
tackling its problems, such as poor quality data including millions
of wrong addresses for taxpayers, while it is denying it has
serious difficulties.
Now OneHMRC, the internal newspaper for the department's 100,000
staff, has revealed the department's intentions under the headline
"Being open about our problems." The newspaper referred to the
unacceptably high level of fraud over tax credits and overpayments,
and the need to improve parts of the PAYE and national insurance
systems.
The newspaper said, "Being open and honest about these issues
(problems with the tax credits system, self-assessment and national
insurance) is very much a part of the new culture we are creating
for the department."
It listed as an example a rare briefing to the media by Revenue
chairman David Varney on the challenges facing the merged
department, in which he accepted that HMRC was "organisationally
challenged".
But HMRC has some way to go in becoming more open. It has, for
example, refused to publish a report by Deloitte and Touche into
the lessons from the problematic introduction of the tax credits
system. Software problems together with the design of the scheme
led to incorrect payments to nearly two million people.
The Deloitte report may help the wider public sector with its IT
project delivery. Former chairman of the Inland Revenue Nick
Montagu said the report "turned up plenty of lessons for future
projects". But a spokesman for HMRC said, "It is not publicly
available as it was produced for internal consumption only."
Computer Weekly's campaign began after Steve Lamey, HMRC's chief
information officer, revealed that the department had many
out-of-date IT systems, substantial amounts of poor-quality data
and was processing less than half of all self-assessment tax
returns correctly first time. It was also sending millions of
letters to the wrong addresses, has inconsistent business
processes, and needed "killer KPIs" (key performance
indicators).
Since the campaign was launched, there have been improvements.
Varney said more than one million addresses have been corrected,
and the Child Benefit Office in Washington, Tyne and Wear, is
planning the introduction of a new computer system to replace one
that is 30 years old. This includes migrating data on seven million
people.
The department has embarked on programmes dubbed "Lean" and
"Pacesetter" to standardise processes, pay out and collect the
right amounts of money, and get processes right first time. HMRC is
also trying to ensure that data held on taxpayers is complete and
accurate, in part by comparing tax records with other databases
such as those held by the Post Office and payroll databases.
HMRC is also helping to bring together the systems of Customs
and Excise and the Inland Revenue by introducing Windows XP
software on 100,000 laptops and desktops by the end of 2006 under
its "strategic integrated desktop environment" programme, which is
described by the department as a "massive change".
It will shift business applications such as self-assessment to
the new system. Pilots on installing XP and business applications
remotely were due to start this month, with roll-out beginning in
March.
HMRC is drawing up key performance indicators for the
department.
Lamey said in the internal newspaper, "One thing I tell people
over and over again is that it takes time to get things in place,
as it is important to get the basics right first. Bear with
us."