CISR12100 - The Scheme: contractors: government departments

All public offices or departments of the Crown (including any Northern Ireland department and any part of the Scottish Administration) are required to operate CIS as contractors where they spend over a certain amount on construction work (see CISR12050). Most government departments will be involved.

This is provided for at FA04/s59 (1)(b) and covers both main government departments and their agencies.

CIS administration

The CIS system relies on interaction with other Revenue systems for maintenance of its records. The essential requirements for maintenance of a CIS record for a contractor are the existence of

• a record on the SA or COTAX system for the contractor
• a BROCS reference relating to a P(SC) or XP scheme for the contractor.

Since a government department or agency is an employer there will already be a P scheme in operation for its employees at a Public Departments office. A BROCS reference will therefore exist.

However, government departments and agencies are not routinely allocated UTRs and SA records. Special arrangements have been made, therefore, to allocate UTRs centrally. This has been done by South Wales Area (Service), formerly PD2, which has set up SA records for all government departments and agencies.

The administration of CIS records relating to government departments and agencies will be undertaken by Public Departments offices. If you receive any enquiries about setting up a record for a local office of a department or agency you should refer the matter to South Wales Area (Service).