Minutes of the Tax Credits Consultation Group (TCCG) meeting

26 June 2008

Attendees

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)

Tracy Gale (Chair), Paul Gerrard, David Skinner, Anne Palmer, Simon Manclark, Andrew Burland, Anita Rakhra, Lee Maxwell

HM Treasury

Catherine Webb, Kara Humphreys, Kathryn McKerrow

Representatives

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

Apologies

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

Welcome and introductions

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:

Tax Credits Transformation Programme

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:

  • If there would be an opportunity to look at Ann Chinner’s proposals for handling tax credit debt processes within TCO?

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.

  • If the tax credits online service (e-portal) was likely to re-open soon?

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.

  • Whether there had been any progress on the wider HMRC project to give email access to agents and intermediaries?

David Skinner said that they would follow-up on this and find out.

  • Robin from CIOT had also asked in advance of the meeting about the processes agents need to follow to act on behalf of customers

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.

HM Treasury publication ‘Tax credits: improving delivery and choice – a discussion paper’

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.

Future direction and Terms of Reference of the Tax Credits Consultation Group

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:

  • they wanted to consider the issues representatives had raised with them in a bit more detail over the summer
  • they were happy to look again at the membership of the group (acknowledging that the membership list may now be somewhat out of date and needed reviewing)
  • their aim was to have a strategic main group, with good working groups underneath to look at more specific issues
  • they wanted to discuss with representatives whether or not the list of apparently outstanding queries was still current and, if so, how that list should be prioritised to ensure that they could be covered effectively whilst also allowing time for HMRC to consider and react to more recent queries
  • requests for specific figures on an ongoing basis would put resource constraints on HMRC and so it may not always be possible to supply answers to requests for such details. Instead, it may be necessary for HMRC to refer representatives to figures already in reports, etc., but that HMRC recognised that for the representatives to be able to support their customers effectively, they did on occasion need to have appropriate advice from HMRC on overall workstate issues in the round
  • they had circulated ideas for a feedback loop for representatives to use to raise issues
  • they were looking at the possibility of setting-up an ‘operational issues’ subgroup

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:

  • although a problem with an individual claim they raised via TCCG may have been dealt with, there may often be an ongoing more ‘general’ problem they are trying to highlight which also needs to be addressed
  • they wanted to see clearer ‘ownership’ within HMRC of the issues that were being dealt with, and also for agreed response times to be given where possible
  • they acknowledged that it takes time to reprint ‘hard-copy’ versions of leaflets to update them, but that they had seen long delays in updating electronic Internet versions, which need to be avoided in future
  • there is a need to avoid potential duplication of effort/overlap amongst subgroups, etc. and that revisiting the spread of those subgroups would be a helpful exercise
  • they felt there is a need to re-establish the appeals task force group in particular
  • that the future of the TCCG also needs to be discussed

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.

Any other business

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:

  • that discussions were ongoing with Department for Work and Pensions colleagues around the possibility of introducing direct line telephones to the Tax Credits Helpline in JobCentre Plus offices
  • that the points raised about disability equality measures are being looked into in conjunction with HMRC’s head of Diversity
  • that progress was being made around the scan to identify tax credits customers whose children are receiving appropriate Disability Living Allowance rates but who may not be getting all appropriate tax credits disability elements for them, and that a further report back would be made at the next meeting of the disability subgroup
  • that a response about notional offsetting was expected shortly and would be circulated to all representatives once available

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.