Customer Forum - Minutes of the Fifth Meeting
|
Contents
Les Shaw welcomed everyone to the 5th Customer Forum As all the attendees from APSS were new to the forum, introductions and a brief outline of roles was made by all APSS staff and members of the forum. The minutes of the last meeting were agreed. Following the publication of the minutes of the last meeting on the Inland Revenue Website, there had been no further problems with press leaks. 3. Joint Pension Schemes System At the previous meeting, Jim Kitson had outlined early plans to develop a new IT system to provide a single gateway for the approval, registration and election for pension schemes. It had been explained at the time that the development was subject to funding being available. Jim Kitson reported that there has been a lot of development work since the last meeting however, although the ideas had broad approval, current Departmental funding priorities have meant that the project would now not be going forward in full as anticipated, and that the original April 2002 will now not be met. It will now require a longer period to complete the project. There was a strong commitment to the overall aims of the project so it would continue but with a new delivery strategy. The revenue was fully committed to working together with the Industry to successfully deliver these changes and proposals for consultation were being developed. The objectives of the project are to 1) provide a single gateway The forum fully endorsed the objectives and saw these as very important to them. Jayne Banner talked about the new SPSS Business Stream and APSS and the objectives of the new structure which was to bring together the various elements of government strategy on savings. The new structure allowed a more cohesive approach with policy, technical and operations all coming under one stream. Jayne Banner told the forum that she wanted APSS to become a more customer focused organisation, and that APSS would need to establish exactly what its customers required in order to meet this objective. She asked whether members of the forum had noticed any difference in the work being carried out by APSS. It was generally agreed that the forum members had not noticed major changes although they felt that the service was continuing to improve and that staff were becoming more helpful. The forum voiced concern over the lack of consultation on Update 101 on Continuous Service although previously arrangements had worked well. The lack of transitional period had caused problems because of the need to change literature and systems immediately. Concern was also raised with regard to the Practice Notes and inconsistencies within them, in particular PN10.22 which the PSO had promised to update to reflect new practice as long ago as 1998 but which had not as yet been done. Jayne Banner promised to raise these matter with Barbara Nesbit (Head of PSTA). The forum were concerned about resources for PSTA which they thought might be under-resourced whereas APSS appeared to have additional resources. Jayne Banner advised that there were no increase in staff numbers within APSS, however she was looking at prioritising work so that experienced staff spent more time on essential work. The issue of the drip feed of information to the industry was also raised. There had been occasions recently where information had been provided to one practitioner before another and that this had caused problems. It was requested that SPSS ensures that if there is a change of practice or further information to be provided, it goes out to all the industry at the same time in full. A number of other technical questions and areas of concern were asked regarding transfers which Paul Cottis promised to pass on to the relevant staff within PSTA for a response. Ann Walker told the forum that as a customer focusing organisation, APSS wanted to set meaningful indicators to measure effective performance. The aim was to create an environment where people could give their best, to provide a value for money service and systems which enable APSS customers to comply more easily. APSS would not always be able to deliver exactly what customers wanted, but would try as far as possible. Ann Walker asked the Forum what their priorities were for APSS, eg faster application approvals etc. It was generally agreed that the current turnaround times were adequate, quality was more important and members wanted full, accurate, consistent answers first time. The forum asked whether it would be possible to have greater self-certification on routine matters, where the practitioner provided a certificate to confirm that something was done within the rules and IR requirements. Ann Walker advised that she was looking into this. Concern was expressed that too much resources were being put into developing initiatives that were of limited interest to the industry, such as Chapter IV conversions. It was felt that there should be more consultation on policies to decide what the industry wants in terms of products. Members were happy to provide details of where the various required elements were within non-standard rules if it would help examiners. Other areas where Forum members felt that the service could be improved were in providing time to implement changes, clear and unambiguous guidance, and faster transfer of new information into Updates. It was asked whether all SPSS forms would be on the Website shortly, and it was confirmed that this was the case. It was also felt that the Practice Notes were written from a final salary rather than a money purchase perspective, and it was requested that they should be changed to reflect the increasing importance of money purchase schemes. Ann Walker asked what sort of Performance Indicators did customers want. The forum requested that the office provide a list of what it could achieve and they would provide a wish list. Also it was requested that SPSS look at the quality of reply to see that all issues were being addressed so that it could be demonstrated that APSS were helping the customer get it right first time, whether customer come back could be logged, and also whether the questions from Customers were clear. The Forum were keen to see greater use of the internet and it was felt that the Website could provide a online discussion area for technical questions, that everyone could access and feed into. Forum members also felt that this area could be used for questionnaires etc, where it would be easy for forms to be completed and could be submitted electronically. Paula Diggle outlined the main areas of policy that were likely to be under review. Following on from the Mitha Report into Defined Benefit Scheme simplification, there were four people seconded from Industry to help the IR with the project. Although the report has not been published , the most recent budget has allowed follow up. It was felt that as only 1% of people are claiming maximum tax relief there is considerable scope for simplification. The project is still at an early stage with the scoping options still to be presented to the Minister with the aim to implement during 2003 although the timetable is very much dependent on the government. There will be consultation with the Industry but at present it is not clear as to what form this will take. Policy will also be looking at flexible retirement including drawing pensions during a persons working life. How this will proceed is dependant on the government and if it is to proceed there will be consultation. Forum members asked if they could have sight of the Mitha report, as had apparently been suggested at a previous forum. Paula Diggle reported that ministers have ruled out further distribution of the Mitha report. 7. SPSS Publications and the Web Prior to the meeting a number of questions had been received on this area, unfortunately the Head of Publications was unable to make the meeting at the last minute and therefore Paul Cottis was not able to answer queries but promised to take them away and ensure that appropriate answers were provided. He reported that following Update 87, the preferred option for the future format of e-publishing was HTML long format and pdf with print your own from either the HTML or pdf versions. The forum was advised that whereas the Website had been changed recently
to reflect a pensions area, changes were still ongoing and further suggestions
would be welcomed. Documents would be available in RTF shortly so that
the people could edit them themselves. Instructions in HTML were still
ongoing. It was suggested that a new map for the Website was provided with clearer signposting. It was also mentioned that the paper version of PN has a slightly different alignment to the Website pdf version which caused problems with the printing of amended pages. Whereas IR76 was noted as being up to date, the contents page was still out of date. Also with regard to IR76 in the paper version it was noted that all section did not start on the right hand page which caused problems. It was suggested that each page of the Practice Notes be annotated with the issue date and that they be provided in RTF format. With regard to FAQ's it was suggested that a pointer was provided to advise what was new. A request was also made that all attachments to Updates were put on the Website and that when changes were made to pages of Practice Notes, a full list of changes was provided. Paul Cottis told the forum that the first workshops had now taken place and that while they had been successful, it was felt that attendees could get more out of them if they were better targeted. Further similar events were planned for the Autumn. It was also recognised that there was a greater need for going out to customers and talking to the staff who had the most dealings with SPSS to find out what their problems were. It was hoped that these would start shortly. It was also agreed that exchanges of staff would be beneficial to both sides, although for reasons of confidentiality it was uncertain at this stage what APSS could show customers coming into the office. APSS has also had stands at a number of exhibitions including the NAPF where visitors had all welcomed our presence and the chance to chat with members of staff. Paul Cottis apologised for the problems with the publication and delivery of Updates recently, but advised that since Update 96, all updates should now be arriving with Customers at the same time as the Web version was released. Concern was expressed over the time taken for letters to reach the recipient from posting. Paul Cottis promised to investigate with the Post Room to ensure letters were being sent directly to the correct address. It was asked when there would be new versions of an integrated model rules for stakeholders to cover the new transfer regulations. The next meeting will be at 10.30 on Tuesday, 20 November 2001 in Bush House, London |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home | ||||
