Agents briefing – Wales proposals:
Cardiff and Swansea 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 estate 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:

Cardiff

One key building will house the department’s future operations in the Cardiff area and three offices are to be vacated beginning in early 2009. Enquiry Centres will remain in, or near, their current location.

The building to be retained is:

  • Government Buildings, Ty Glas, Llanishen, Cardiff CF14 5YA

Buildings to be vacated from early 2009 onwards:

  • Portcullis House, 21 Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9SS
  • Crown Building, 11 Chepstow Road, Newport, Gwent
  • Taff Vale House, Taff Street, Pontypridd CF37 4AJ

Swansea

One key building will house the department’s future operations in the Swansea area. Two 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 building to be retained is:

  • Ty Nant, 180 High Street, Swansea, West Glamorgan SA1 5AP

Buildings to be vacated from early 2009 onwards:

  • Crown Buildings, Town Hall Square, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire SA15 1YE
  • Custom House, Pier Head, Kings Dock, Swansea, West Glamorgan SA1 8RY

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. Furthermore we are making appropriate arrangements so that we can continue to meet customers and agents needs to correspond in the Welsh language.

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.