Agents briefing – Scotland proposals:
Edinburgh and Glasgow urban centres

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Change Programme

This briefing provides further information about our plans to modernise and transform our services for customers. We are carrying out a series of Regional Planning Reviews that will bring HMRC’s estates provision and staffing levels into line with our plans to modernise the department, making our operations more efficient while improving our service to customers.

We are now well over a year into that programme and we have been progressively consulting with our staff as well as talking to Members of Parliament and our key stakeholder groups.

Key headlines are:

Edinburgh

Six buildings will house the department’s future operations in the Edinburgh area and five offices are to be vacated beginning in early 2009. Enquiry Centres will remain in, or near, their current location.

The buildings being retained are:

  • Pyramids Business Park, Bathgate, West Lothians EH48 2EH
  • Elgin House, 20 Haymarket Yards, Edinburgh EH12 5WU
  • Grayfield House, 5 Bankhead Avenue, Edinburgh EH11 4AE
  • Meldrum House, 15 Drumsheugh Gardens, Edinburgh EH3 7UQ
  • Barbara Ritchie House, Almondvale Way, Livingston EH54 6GB
  • Pentland House, Almondvale South, Livingston EH54 6NL

Buildings to be vacated from early 2009 onwards, with the exception of Argyle House which we will vacate in autumn 2008:

  • 44 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3JW
  • Argyle House, 3 Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh EH3 9SH
  • Clarendon House, 114-116 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 4LH
  • Saughton House, Broomhouse Drive, Edinburgh EH11 3XG
  • Spitfire House, Cargo Terminal, Edinburgh Airport EH12 0AL

Glasgow

Eight office buildings will house the department’s future operations in the Glasgow area. Six other offices are to be vacated on a phased basis beginning in early 2009. Enquiry Centres will remain in, or near, their current location.

The buildings being retained are:

  • St Mungo’s Road, Cumbernauld G70 5TR
  • Plaza Tower, East Kilbride G74 1LW
  • Queensway House, Stewartfield Way, East Kilbride G79 1AA
  • Cotton House, 7 Cochrane Street, Glasgow G1 1GY
  • Portcullis House, 21 India Street, Glasgow G2 4HY
  • Paisley Campus

Buildings to be vacated from early 2009 onwards:

  • 2 Muiryhall Street, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire ML5 3EZ
  • 15 Meadowbank Street, Dumbarton G82 1JR
  • Blythswood House, 200 West Regent Street, Glasgow G2 4DG
  • 1 Barrack Street, Hamilton, Lanarkshire ML3 0HS
  • 43 Civic Square, Motherwell ML1 1TJ
  • Gilmour House, 26 Gilmour Street, Paisley PA1 1EQ

As I have set out above, we are maintaining face-to-face services in our Enquiry Centres in all of these locations, and of course we will be continuing with our usual programme of audit checks.

We know that some members of the agent community continue to find it useful to have a working relationship with locally-based tax officials, despite their business portfolio being handled by other HMRC offices around the country and the availability of our centralised contact centre service. For those agents, we acknowledge that the prospect of our moving staff to a different location may initially cause concern. However, we are now looking at a number of ways we might improve our services to this important customer group, in particular by more accurate targeting of our website content site to their needs and by reviewing the handling of calls by our service centres.

If you want any further information about our Regional Review Programme please contact Colin Kirk on Tel 020 7438 4224, or Paul Smyth on Tel 020 7438 8405.