Tracy Gale (Chair), Paul Gerrard, David Skinner, Anne Palmer, Simon Manclark, Andrew Burland, Anita Rakhra, Lee Maxwell
Catherine Webb, Kara Humphreys, Kathryn McKerrow
Beth Lakhani - Child Poverty Action Group, Victoria Todd - Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, Lindsay Isaacs - Citizens Advice Scotland, Katie Lane - Citizens Advice, David Brodie - TaxAid, Jane Moore - Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales, Janet Allbeson - One Parent Families, Sylvia Gilbert - Local Government Association, Frances Robinson - Local Government Association, Bernie O’Gorman - Local Government Association, Siobhan Harding - Citizens Advice Northern Ireland, Robin Williamson - Chartered Institute of Taxation
John Andrews - Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, Fran Bennett - University of Oxford, David Stickland - Greenwich Welfare Rights Service, Bianca Marsden - Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, Richard Exell - Trades Union Congress, Alaster Calder - Surrey County Council Welfare Rights, Paul Treloar - Disability Alliance
Tracy Gale welcomed everyone to the meeting and said, as she had explained in her note to representatives of 6 June 2008, she would now be chairing future TCCG meetings. She said that this meeting would follow the proposed new format (which was still subject to agreement) and look at three strategic issues:
Paul Gerrard explained the background to the Tax Credits Transformation Programme and outlined its aims and objectives. He said that these were also detailed in Chapter 5 of the recent joint HM Treasury/HMRC publication ‘Tax credits: improving delivery and choice – a discussion paper’ (which was to be covered later in this meeting).
Paul explained that the initiatives being undertaken as part of the programme were intended to provide improvements to customers by offering a more tailored service to meet their differing needs, and to make maximum use of the contact the department has with them. Paul then outlined some of the pilot ‘workstreams’ that the Programme had been developing. A full list of the Programme’s current remit was included with Paul’s presentation.
Representatives commented that this was a very encouraging piece of work, and asked whether there were any plans to extend the work of the Programme into other areas (debt etc). Paul said that one of the main purposes behind the pilot initiatives was to engage with customers much more proactively upfront, to avoid them getting into a debt situation to begin with, but that the Programme remit did not include debt specific issues as such.
Paul said that he would like to set-up some bilateral meetings with representatives’ organisations, in order to make best use of their knowledge, experience and expertise in helping to develop the Programme thinking going forward. He said he would get in touch with representatives separately in due course.
Representatives asked the following questions:
Tracy said that this work remained ongoing and that Des Dolan and Helen Smith would provide an update at a separate meeting. To note, since the meeting on 26 June, because of the wide interest across the Group, we propose to have this as a substantive agenda item at the full October meeting.
Paul explained that there were no immediate plans to do this, but that HMRC were aiming to move forwards on this in the future as the IDAS proposals developed further.
David Skinner said that they would follow-up on this and find out.
David Skinner agreed to follow this up and to look to resolve the case Robin had raised in this context.
Paul said that HMRC would clearly need to make sure that the related business process IDAS would rely on in due course works appropriately.
Tracy thanked the representatives for their comments and contributions.
Catherine Webb explained that the HM Treasury team wanted to give some background to the policy discussion paper published on 20 May 2008, and canvass some initial views from members of the group. She said the paper set out a range of actual and potential improvements to tax credits – some of which are already ongoing under the Tax Credits Transformation Programme as Paul had just mentioned, and others of which were more long term, strategic and open for discussion. Catherine mentioned some of ministers’ key objectives, including increasing take up of tax credit entitlement amongst people without children, and continuing to contribute towards the aim of eradicating child poverty.
The HMT team then expanded upon some of the strategic areas for discussion that had been outlined in the paper, and said that they would welcome representatives’ thoughts on these areas (including ideas for discussion around such things as childcare, avoiding overpayments and debt) once they had had time to consider them.
Representatives gave some initial reactions, including mentioning the importance of working closely with DWP, especially taking into account their initiatives and incentives for helping lone parents into work. They also acknowledged that things such as childcare can sometimes be difficult, and that there can be issues around parents needing childcare deposits, etc, that would need consideration in any future developments. Additionally, things such as potential effects of deferred payment options on Housing Benefit entitlement were mentioned.
HMT said again that they welcomed this kind of input from representatives and that they looked forward to hearing their further thoughts in due course. They said they would be very happy to talk to any of the representatives about any aspects of the discussion document over the course of the summer to listen to their ideas and to help to inform any written submissions the different representative groups might then want to make.
Tracy thanked representatives for the joint response they had sent following her email about proposed changes to the group, and confirmed that she and her team appreciated the time the representatives had taken to think about options and to respond formally. She said that she would be happy to take forward the substance of almost all the suggestions made.
David Skinner explained that:
Representatives mentioned problems they had encountered previously, and said that they were hoping HMRC would address certain points as part of the proposed improvement work. They said that, in their experience:
Listening to issues raised by the representatives, as well as agreeing to look at the number and remit of the working subgroups, Tracy said she recognised that there was probably also a need for separate ongoing discussions around debt and communications issues in particular, and added that her team would take forward the handling of those aspects as they thought through the wider points about how best to work with the TCCG in the future.
Tracy invited David to give the TCCG an update on the action points arising from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury’s attendance at the last meeting of the group. David also gave updates on some of the actions taken forward from that meeting, including:
Representatives asked that their thanks be passed on to Nigel Jordan for all his hard work in chairing previous meetings of the group.
The next meeting was scheduled for 16 October 2008 at 100 Parliament Street.
