HMRC Inquiry Centre Closures

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr McCrea. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) on securing this debate and putting across his points with characteristic clarity and force. Although I can understand his and other Members’ concerns about the new HMRC service, particularly the plans to close its network of inquiry centres, I hope to provide reassurance that the changes will in fact provide better support to customers who require extra help to get their taxes and payments right. I want to focus on three areas: the impact on HMRC staff, whether there will be continued provision of face-to-face service and what the changes will really mean for those who currently use the inquiry centres.

First, let me begin, as the hon. Member for Wansbeck did, with the impact of the proposals on existing HMRC staff. Members will be aware that HMRC has recently written to all MPs about the introduction of the new service. That letter includes confirmation, which I would like to stress again today, that the plans are no reflection on the dedication and commitment of the 1,300 staff working in the inquiry centres. It is simply the case that HMRC can better support customers if it uses its money and staff in other ways.

Since the original consultation on the proposed new service began last year, HMRC has been discussing the impact of the changes with staff in inquiry centres and trade unions. As the hon. Member for Wansbeck pointed out, I met PCS representatives this morning to discuss the changes. Staff have been advised of the options and support available to them, dependent on their personal circumstances. The options include opportunities to apply for one of 450 roles in the new service.

A voluntary exit scheme has been opened for inquiry centre staff who wish to leave the Department on favourable terms, and HMRC has good reason to expect that a significant number will take the option to leave and pursue their futures elsewhere. HMRC will also, of course, do everything possible to redeploy as many staff as possible within HMRC or to help them to find other roles within the civil service. For those who go into the redeployment pool, the offer of a one-to-one meeting is still in place—it has certainly not been withdrawn.

It is worth bearing in mind HMRC’s history as an employer. It has reduced in size significantly over the past nine years, but there have been only 35 compulsory redundancies. Although I cannot provide any guarantees that there will be no such redundancies, HMRC’s record in avoiding such eventualities is strong.

Secondly, I would like to address the concerns of those who have suggested that the closure of the inquiry centres marks the end of HMRC’s dedicated face-to-face advisory service. Let me reassure them that that is definitely not the case. A face-to-face service is about people; it is not about bricks and mortar. What is important is that HMRC provides an accessible and flexible face-to-face service that meets the needs of customers. Such a service is at the heart of the new system, which will provide face-to-face meetings where that is most convenient to customers. Today’s customers increasingly want to access services online, by phone and face to face when they need them. That is what the new service will focus on providing.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gauke]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has just arrived.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I apologise for being late; I have been tied up in a Committee. The Minister mentions the responsibility to maintain customer services. Does he feel that it is sufficient merely to put posters in the windows of the offices that have closed? Is that sufficient notice to give the public, particularly when the feedback from the pilots was that that was not an effective method of communicating with the public?

[Mr Gauke]

It is important that HMRC communicates the closure of inquiry centres. It has written to all Members of Parliament on the matter and will take other steps to ensure that our constituents are aware of the changes.

Inquiry centres are not universally distributed across the country, and large parts of the UK are not even served by them. My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who is no longer in his place, raised the position of rural areas. Rural areas do not tend to be well served by inquiry centres at present. There has been a sharp decline in the use of inquiry centres. Visitor numbers have halved from more than 5 million in 2005-06 to just over 2 million in 2012-13, and the number of face-to-face appointments also dropped by four fifths to 140,000 last year.