Concentrix

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Louise Haigh

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is hard to believe that the number of fraudulent tax credit claimants suddenly increased so dramatically in those two years. What is clear, however, is that there is an ever-growing evidence base suggesting that Concentrix has been unfairly and unjustly stopping people’s tax credits, leaving them in financial difficulty, along with the anxiety that that causes.

I am pleased that the Government have accepted that the contract was not working. Indeed, they were forced to concede that point in an answer to a parliamentary question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley early last month. The response revealed:

“Since mid-October 2015 there has been 120 instances where Concentrix has not fully met the performance standards set out in the contract out of a total of 1625.”

Following mounting pressure from Opposition Members, the Government announced that they would not renew the Concentrix contract when it ends in May, and that they would redeploy 150 members of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to clear the backlog of cases.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Is she aware that it was not actually until October last year that the Government started monitoring the performance of Concentrix, as was revealed to me in a parliamentary answer just a couple of weeks ago? That shows exactly why they have removed the contract now, because before that they did not even know whether Concentrix was performing the service standards laid out in it.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. A whole section of my speech is devoted to particular clauses in the contract that may or may not have been enforced by HMRC and the Government. I will come on to that in due course.

Labour welcomed the announcement that 150 members of staff would be redeployed and that the contract would not be renewed, but we still had serious concerns that Concentrix would continue to handle cases and that the Government had not stated that they would bring the operation back in-house. Following further pressure from Labour and the Public and Commercial Services Union, the Government backed down and PCS confirmed last week that the operation will, indeed, be brought back in-house, with Concentrix staff in Belfast being transferred to HMRC.

We of course welcomed that action, but it does not even begin to address the wider issues. How did this situation arise? When did the Government first become aware of it? What action did they take? How will they ensure that it does not occur again? Most importantly, when and how will the victims be compensated? Media reports were surfacing as far back as 2015 in relation to erroneous tax credit decisions pursuant to the contract, and, as I have outlined, the figures indicated an unusual spike in appeals. The red flags were there and they should have been acted on.

I would like to direct the Minister to the contract between HMRC and Concentrix, which provided a number of tools that the Government had at their fingertips. Section I3.1 of the contract provides that where HMRC is concerned with the delivery of service, it can investigate. Was HMRC concerned, and if so, when? If the Minister cannot answer just yet, I will, to help her to pinpoint the information, illustrate further machinery in the contract that would have helped the Government and HMRC to find out about any problems pretty swiftly. Section E7.1 and schedule D provide for reviews of the contract’s effectiveness. Schedule D4.1 states that “prior to…Go Live”, HMRC would work with Concentrix to establish and agree a “robust Governance Framework” including contract management, communications, quality and assurance, payment risk management, performance management, change control and, most importantly, reporting. Will the Minister confirm the details of that “robust Governance Framework” for the benefit of the House?

If the Minister cannot do so, I can reassure her that fall-back options were still available. Schedule D12.1 states that HMRC would have full access to individual cases and, further, that Concentrix was under an obligation to let HMRC observe its working methods. Pursuant to that provision, were individual cases reviewed by HMRC, and did HMRC investigate the methods used by Concentrix? If so, how often did that happen and what were the findings of those investigations? It is clear that the Government had the tools that they needed to monitor service delivery, but perhaps they simply did not use them. The Minister will confirm in due course.

If the Government had found failings after exhausting the quite reasonable dispute process in the contract, they could have exercised the break clause found at section G3 by giving only three months’ notice. Will the Minister confirm whether and when that was considered, and tell us the outcome of that consideration? If, however, her answer to all my contractual questions is, “I don’t know,” I would ask whether she is really sure that HMRC had the capacity to monitor the contract effectively. She will be interested to know that PCS is due to publish a report on HMRC shortly, which suggests that

“the department is at breaking point…staff are hugely demoralised, 25% want to leave the department immediately or within a year and the department scores below average in all of the measures on the Civil Service’s annual staff survey.”

The report does not paint a happy picture.