Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the grading structure applied to the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce is; and how many employees were in each grade as of 1 September 2022.

At the Spring Budget 2021, the Government announced a £100 million investment to form the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. This enabled HMRC to significantly extend work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID-19 support schemes that HMRC administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Eat Out to Help Out). These payments were grants rather than loans. HMRC does not administer or undertake compliance of other COVID-19 financial support packages, such as Bounce Back Loans.

The taskforce was funded for 1,265 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff selected from those who have tax training and compliance experience. Once they joined, the taskforce staff were provided with additional training on the COVID-19 schemes.

As of 31 July 2022, there were 1,203 FTE in the taskforce made up of the below grades: