Equality and diversity

Every day, HMRC develops and delivers policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country and beyond. Our vision, values, strategic objectives and the HMRC Charter describe the type of organisation we want to be – one that treats customers and colleagues fairly, protects society from harm and makes HMRC a great place to work.

Our responsibilities

As a non-devolved public authority, HMRC has statutory equality responsibilities in England, Scotland and Wales under the Equality Act 2010, and in Northern Ireland under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Our compliance is monitored by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

HMRC equality objectives 2024 to 2028

To help us achieve this - and meet our statutory responsibilities - we’ve set 3 equality objectives for 2024 to 2028. These describe our work to become a more inclusive, respectful and representative organisation. They apply to our work with customers and as an employer. They cover all areas of equality, diversity and inclusion.

Representative

We will build and maintain a diverse and inclusive workforce, reflective of all the communities we serve across all grades, groups, and regions. We will:

  • increase the proportion of colleagues who voluntarily declare their diversity characteristics in our online HR system to 85%, to enable more accurate equality analysis of employee experience and outcomes
  • increase diversity at our most senior levels, measured via representation rates of women, disabled and ethnic minority, Black and Asian colleagues at Grade 7, Grade 6 and Senior Civil Service roles
  • ensure our promotion and recruitment processes are merit-based, measured by equality analysis of the outcomes of selection decisions

We will improve our understanding of customers who have protected characteristics, to enable us to identify the impact of policy and service changes on our customers. We will:

  • increase the quality and sources of data about customers’ protected characteristics and improve evaluation of that data to achieve a more accurate understanding of customer needs, experiences and outcomes, and the potential impact of our decisions
  • in advance of all policy decisions or changes, identify those that might impact on customers with protected characteristics, subject those to equality impact assessments and publish the results
  • ensure all large-scale projects and policy change activity undergo equality impact assessments that are reviewed by relevant HMRC committees as necessary

Inclusive

We will ensure our physical and digital environments are inclusive and accessible, enabling colleagues to do their best work. To do this we will:

  • improve colleague satisfaction rates with how easily and quickly workplace adjustments are provided
  • close any significant gaps in the experience of colleagues from different groups, measured by the ‘Inclusion and Fair Treatment’ themed questions in the Civil Service People Survey
  • close any significant gaps in the retention rates of colleagues from different groups, measured by equality analysis of leaver data

We will deliver our HMRC Charter obligations, ensuring that no customer groups are disadvantaged when accessing our services. We will:

  • continue to increase the accessibility of HMRC digital systems, maintaining compliance with the Public Sector Accessibility Regulations 2018  and promoting digital inclusion for all HMRC services
  • continue to build our understanding of customers with protected characteristics through data analysis, customer insight and engaging with our VCS partners, channelling what is learnt into delivering improvements to customer experience
  • continue to offer and develop Welsh language services that match our English language services

Respectful

We will provide a fair, kind and human culture with a strong sense of belonging, and working environments where colleagues can thrive and learn. We will:

  • reduce the level of bullying, harassment, and discrimination experienced by colleagues, measured by the Civil Service People Survey
  • increase the level of reporting of bullying, harassment and discrimination when it does happen and increase the levels of agreement that appropriate actions was taken to address it, measured by the Civil Service People Survey
  • improve colleague experience scores in the Civil Service People Survey

We will ensure that colleagues across the organisation have the necessary understanding of HMRC’s responsibilities towards customers under the Equality Act 2010, Public Sector Equality Duty and Northern Ireland Equality Scheme. We will:

  • continue to deliver training to customer-facing colleagues to build awareness of our equality obligations and how to give customers the reasonable adjustments they are entitled to
  • monitor success through training uptake, colleague feedback and ongoing complaints monitoring
  • provide relevant resources for colleagues, such as equality impacting training, workshops and learning library,​ which will be monitored by colleague feedback
  • continue to strengthen the equality impacting process within HMRC’s change process

Publications on equality and diversity

We publish equality information in our annual report of HMRC compliance with the public sector equality duties.

We also publish workforce information in our annual report and accounts and information on equal pay in our gender pay gap reports.

Northern Ireland Equality Scheme

Our Northern Ireland Equality Scheme for HMRC outlines how we will meet our equality requirements in Northern Ireland including provision for the publication of Initial Equality Analysis and Equality Impact Assessments.

Developed to meet out statutory obligations under the Northern Ireland Disability Discrimination Act 1995, our Disability Action Plan 2021 to 2024 demonstrates our continued commitment to improve the experience for our disabled colleagues and customers throughout the UK.

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