Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the gift aid review launched in their policy paper Summary of tax administration and maintenance: Spring 2023, published on 27 April, how many meetings they have had with charities in the past six months as part of that review.

As part of the Government’s review of the administration of Gift Aid processes, and to fully understand the current Gift Aid Service and associated processes and challenges, HMRC has conducted in-depth research interviews with officials responsible for Gift Aid from 17 charities across the country, ranging in size from micro to large. These represented charities across a range of different sectors and included some that claim Gift Aid, don’t claim or partially claim, to help understand the reasons, challenges and needs.

HMRC also conducted internal user research with members of its charities operations team to understand the challenges and to inform its research with charity officials.

Prior to the announcement, HMRC met with 6 charity officials responsible for Gift Aid at their respective charities to test changes to the charities online service. This followed research conducted with 5 charities in November 2022.

In total, there have been 28 research sessions with distinct, individual charities, and two sector meetings. 18 of these meetings have been in the past 6 months, with the remaining 12 having happened in the past 12 months.

This review of existing processes and research into challenges and possible improvements is still ongoing.