Maria Eagle
Main Page: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)Department Debates - View all Maria Eagle's debates with the HM Treasury
Outsourcing and Tax Credits
Maria Eagle Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Simon Kirby
Not yet.
I can confirm that there has been no change in Government policy on outsourcing. I suspect that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) has asked this urgent question in the light of the recent concerns surrounding the Government’s outsourcing contract with Concentrix.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs places the utmost importance on providing a quality service to its customers. As the Government have made clear, high standards were not met in recent months by Concentrix, the company HMRC had engaged to help us in the important work of tackling fraud and error in the tax credits system. Once this became clear, HMRC took steps to rectify the situation and deployed HMRC staff as quickly as possible. From that point, no new cases were passed to Concentrix, and HMRC took back 181,000 individual cases that were being managed by Concentrix. I can reassure the House that not only have all the 181,000 cases been finalised, but HMRC has now restored the expected quality levels of customer service to ensure people receive the tax credits to which they are entitled. HMRC continues to review outstanding cases in which a mandatory reconsideration has been requested, and it has taken steps regarding the future of the contract with Concentrix.
On 14 September, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury informed the House that HMRC would not be renewing the contract with Concentrix. Last week, she informed the House that HMRC is currently in discussions with Concentrix to agree a negotiated early exit to the contract. These commercial discussions continue. I want to be clear that HMRC will not go back to the market to seek another partner to replace Concentrix and provide additional capacity to challenge error and fraud in the tax credit system. There has, however, been no change in Government policy on outsourcing, which can be an appropriate way to deliver both quality public services and savings for the taxpayer. I assure the House that HMRC is committed to learning the lessons from the problems that have arisen over the past months, supported by the independent review of the National Audit Office.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Some of my constituents have lost other moneys. They have gone into rent arrears and have bank charges to pay, for example. Will the Minister undertake to make sure that either Concentrix or HMRC compensates those people for their actual losses—caused, it must be remembered, when they were accused of having an undeclared partner who was dead or a previous tenant they had never known. This has nothing to do with my constituents and has everything to do with rank maladministration. I hope that the Minister will stand up today and confirm that these people will be compensated by Concentrix or HMRC.
Simon Kirby
The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that HMRC does run a compensation scheme. If her constituents—or her as their MP—would like to write, I am sure they will have some success.