Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to section 5.1 of HMRC's Annual Report 2016-17, what assessment his Department has made of the reasons for the low results for engagement amongst HMRC staff compared with other civil servants in other Departments.

HMRC’s Employee Engagement Index (EEI) for the 2017 People Survey is 50%, 3% up from last year with increases in 8 of 9 themes measured in the survey, thus mirroring the overall Civil Service trend. The increase in our EEI to 50% places HMRC 11% away from the Civil Service benchmark 2017 of 61%.

Of the top 3 themes with the strongest association with engagement in HMRC:

• ‘Leadership and Managing change’ increased by 5% points, to 39%, still 7% behind the Civil Service benchmark but an overall increase of 9% since 2015.

• ‘My Manager’ increased by 3% scoring 70% equalling the CS benchmark.

• ‘Pay and Benefits’ was the only theme that dropped, down 2% to 22%, some 8% off the benchmark figure – this mirrors the trend across the Civil Service.

  To put into context, HMRC is currently undergoing a substantial change programme ‘Building our Future’, which will rationalise our estate into 13 regional centres and better position ourselves to meet future demands and challenges. This includes several changes to the way people work in HMRC including the introduction of new technology and systems through ‘Making Tax Digital’ and different approaches to how HMRC investigates and identifies tax evaders through looking at how compliance activity will be done in the future. These changes impact on every employee in HMRC.

  Following the results publication in December our analytical community and business engagement leads have been looking at the data in greater detail and obtaining substantive feedback from our people through follow up workshops and focus groups.