Corporate Responsibility Highlights

Business in the Community's Corporate Responsibility Index

HMRC leads the way for Government in the Corporate Responsibility Index

HMRC is the only government department to appear in this year's Business in the Community (BITC) Index of the top 100 corporately responsible businesses. Our eighty-seventh place in the Index is an improvement of ten places on the benchmark set by the Inland Revenue last year.

The Corporate Responsibility Index is a voluntary, business-led standard of responsible business practice. It enables companies and organisations to assess the extent to which their corporate behaviour is translated into responsible practice throughout the organisation, with customers and stakeholders and in the community.

For HMRC corporate responsibility has been a vital component of our first successful year. It has been demonstrated through the commitment shown across the organisation to maximising the positive impact we have on our stakeholders (including our customers and suppliers), our staff, the community and the environment.

This is great achievement for HMRC. We plan to build upon this success by embedding corporate responsibility into our business activities and improving our position in next year's list.

Business in the Community's 2004 Awards for Excellence

In 2004 the Inland Revenue achieved the 'Big Tick' standard for each of their 4 entries into Business in the Community's 2004 Awards for Excellence. The entries covered work that ranged from environmental to community activity. The Diversity in the Workplace entry achieved a runner up place in the national finals. Another of the entries, submitted in partnership with local businesses in Preston, also won the prestigious top place as BitC's National Example of Excellence for Collaborative Action.

Business in the Community's 2005 Awards for Excellence

The Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise submitted 8 entries between them for Business in the Community's 2005 Awards for Excellence. 5 of those entries achieved the 'Big Tick' standard and one of the entries, Bristol Action on Homelessness, achieved a runner up place in the national finals.

Top

Diversity and Equality

  • Business in the Community's Opportunity Now and Race for Opportunity benchmarking entries: In 2004 we achieved a Gold Standard for our Opportunity Now benchmarking entry. In June 2005 we achieved a Gold Standard for our Race for Opportunity benchmarking entry, also securing 7th position within the public sector.
  • National Audit Office recognition for Inland Revenue: In December 2004 the National Audit Office reported on 'Delivering Public Services to a Diverse Society'. The Inland Revenue formed part of a detailed case study examination of specific diversity initiatives. It found that Revenue's approach to diversity had:
    • Secured the commitment of front line staff by allowing them sufficient scope to take initiatives in addressing the needs of diverse customers.
    • Nurtured appropriate skills within the workforce. The ability to engage with individuals from diverse communities was the key personal attribute that enabled front-line staff to meet diverse customer needs.
    • Resulted in forming long term partnerships with external stakeholders and minority customer groups to help identify their different needs.
    • Encouraged the use of monitoring and evaluating initiatives, including feedback, to assess progress and to make improvements to customer delivery.
    • Recognised differentiation is necessary to take account of different cultures and provided positive help to communities that need it.
    • That although the Inland Revenue diversity unit was based in HR about 80% of their total effort is spent working in the business function. The structure in the planning process has changed from divisional plans for business/HR functions to one medium term crosscutting, strategic plan that enables equality and diversity.
  • Please see Diversity and Equality for more information.

Schools and students

Red Box

In partnership with HM Treasury we have improved our Red Box service to take account of the feedback from users. Red Box is a free interactive resource for schools to teach pupils about tax and public spending. It fits with the citizenship element of the National Curriculum. See at Red Box for more information.

The student online brochure Tax+U

We have developed an electronic brochure for students giving information about tax related issues, whether you have a loan to repay or are a working student or a student parent. See The student online brochure Tax+U (PDF 59K) for more information.

Top

Prince's Trust

We continue to support the work of the Prince's Trust as it offers good quality, value for money training and development opportunities for our staff. Excellent benefits are obtained from the community based projects, for both the communities and HMRC's business aims. We have continued to offer our support to all new businesses sponsored by the Trust's Business Programme so they can receive access to information and education on a range of tax related issues at an early stage to help them attain and retain economic independence through their new businesses.

Key achievements in 2004-05 include:

  • the Inland Revenue became the first and only government department to meet a target of 3% of staff aged 17-25 participating in the Trust's programmes.
  • the Inland Revenue became the first employer in the UK to support over 200 staff through the Trusts Team Programme in one year.
  • 85% of staff who participated, and 78% of their Line Managers, said their team working skills had greatly improved.
  • 85% of staff who participated said they had increased their understanding of customer needs with 57% registering a significant improvement.

Environment

Environment Policies and Reports

We are writing a new Sustainable Development Policy for HMRC. Meanwhile our achievements are a direct result of the two former departments' Sustainable Development Policies. More information can be found at:

Fleet Management Awards for former HM Customs and Excise

With the largest petrol-electric hybrid fleet in the UK (180 vehicles) former HM Customs and Excise's National Fleet Management has massively reduced CO2 emissions arising from frontline operations. In addition to winning the fleet industry's top award Fleet News' UK fleet of the Year in March 2005 for the second successive year, they also won two of the country's most prestigious national environmental transport awards:

  • Environmental and Sustainable Fleet of the Year: HMCE collected the Environmental and Sustainable Fleet of the Year Award at the Environmental and Sustainable Transport (EAST) Awards presentation ceremony at the London Transport Museum on Friday 1st April 2005. The Judging Panel were: Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Freight Transport Association, Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, LP Gas Association, Natural Gas Vehicle Association, Electric Vehicle Society and the Greater London Authority Green Group
  • BP Environmental Star Award: The award recognises outstanding efforts among the fleet to reduce its impact on the climate and the list of its achievements is extensive. The judges said that "The HMCE Head of Specialist Fleet & Radio Communications, John Webb, has had a significant influence on the environmental impact of the fleet."

International Capacity Building

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has been actively involved in international activities and global development for many years and has built a worldwide reputation for targeted delivery, quality, professionalism and integrity.

International Capacity Building's strategic objective is to:
"Promote, manage and coordinate global revenue and customs development activities and strategies which contribute towards Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets and business objectives of HM Revenue & Customs and other UK Government Departments."

In line with the Departments' strategic objective on 'Corporate Social Responsibility', ICB works in partnership across Whitehall and with other development agencies to try and ensure that international activities embrace corporate social responsibility. We do this in a number of ways but in particular by:

  • providing resource, expertise and know-how to sustainable development and capacity building activities as identified by DFID, FCO and other private and donor sector organisations;
  • ensuring that Revenue and Customs organisational development activities assist other Government Department's achieve their PSA targets in areas such as:
    • Sustainable development
    • Stability
    • Poverty reduction
    • Rule of Law
    • Trade
    • EU development
  • promoting and developing assistance strategies and deliverables that reflect corporate social responsibility.

HMRC believes strongly in corporate social responsibility and understands that it embraces a wide range of issues. Corporate social responsibility provides great potential to help us all achieve international goals for sustainable economic, social and environmental development.