Minutes of meeting of Working Together Steering Group (WTSG)
29 April 2009
HM Revenue & Customs, 100 Parliament Street
Chair - Brian Redford (HMRC)
Agent representatives - Shown collectively as the Working Together Professional Group (WTPG) in these minutes
- Derek Allen (DA) - ICAS
- Mike Belfourd (MB) - ICAS
- Jean Jesty (JJ) - ATT
- Richard Mannion (RM) - CIOT
- Brian Palmer (BP) - AAT
- Richard Shooter (RS) - ICAEW
- Peter Jennings (PJ) - ACCA
- Elizabeth Parks (EP) - Independent Administrator for Working Together Professional Group (WTPG)
- Martyn Warren (MW) - ICAEW
- Anne Wright (AW) - CIOT
HMRC representatives
- Stephen Banyard (SB) - Business Customer Unit
- Lynn Coulby (LC) - Business Customer Unit
- Steve Dobbin (SD) - Business Customer Unit
- Catherine Gregory (CG) - New Compliance Checks
- Brian Major (BM) - PAYE, SA & NIC Processing
- Allan McVittie (AMcV) - PAYE, SA & NIC Processing
- Simon Norris (SN) - Central Powers Review
- Brian Redford (BR) - Business Customer Unit
- Jacqueline Stewart (JS) - Business Customer Unit
1. Welcome, introduction and apologies
1.1 Apologies were received from:
No apologies were received.
1.2 BR opened the meeting and welcomed all guest speakers and a round the table introduction ensued.
2. Minutes of previous meeting and matters arising
2.1 WTPG agreed to deal with open actions on an exception basis.
2.2 Paragraph 2.9 of the December WTSG minutes: Discussion ensued around Time to Pay (TTP) arrangements and the fact that WTPG members were awaiting a response from BPSS. It was agreed that we would discuss with BPSS what live issues they have and draw up a work plan for BPSS to take forward. It was agreed that this should be taken forward ahead of the next WTSG meeting and a four week time limit was agreed.
Action 1: WTPG to highlight issues they would like to take forward in a work plan for BPSS
Action 2: SD to speak with BPSS to establish the live issues around BPSS and work with WTPG to take forward as a work plan.
2.3 PJ highlighted outstanding action on Manninen cases and JS confirmed that she will pursue response from specialist and circulate with the minutes of this meeting.
Action 3: JS to pursue response to Manninen case point highlighted by Peter Jennings
3. Service update
3.1 Post: BR outlined the position to March 2009. 850,000 pieces of post on hand, 550,000 are over 40 days old. BR explained that there had been a substantial influx of unexpected Child Tax Credit claims as a result of inaccurate press publicity in the run up to 31 January 2009. This has meant we are behind in March but we should expect to see an improvement in April 2009.
3.2 BR invited WTPG to share their current experiences of our post service and WTPG highlighted that movements of post caused problems and that the Centre for Non Residents (CNR) were reporting a shift from a one week backlog to an over four week backlog. BR acknowledged WTPG concern that the lack of tracking activity of a piece of correspondence received in HMRC was frustrating and highlighted that the Bristol pilot objective was to explore how we handle customer work. SD confirmed that he would pick up the work on the Bristol pilot in June and report back to WTPG. BR confirmed that the value of research from the Bristol pilot would be shared with Customer Operations.
3.3 64-8: BR confirmed that the CAA Team had received 2 million 64-8s so far this year, which is up from last year. BR confirmed that from May 2009 we will have the deployment of scanners which will record 64-8s on receipt and this will allow them to be tracked.
3.4 VAT: BR confirmed that we are currently clearing 64.5 per cent of applications within 13 days. As at February 2009 we were meeting the published 50 days target to complete registrations requiring further checks.
3.5 A general discussion then ensued around areas where WTPG felt dissatisfied with the level of service being provided. WTPG mentioned that date of issue on the final demand notices showed 16 February 2009 but these were not actually received until March 2009. Allan McVittie explained that this had been caused by a printing problem.
3.6 WTPG also highlighted concerns around processing of CG34 post transaction clearances. It was observed that some form CG34's appear to be separated from the associated correspondence so the form may inadvertently not be actioned. PG requested a review of how form CG34 are worked by all HMRC offices and whether there is merit for the forms to be sent to one specialised central location in CAR.
4. Agent authorisation & UTR
4.1 BR referred to the discussion paper shared with WTPG ahead of the meeting and invited comment. WTPG asked if there were any problems around the 31 January initiatives. BR confirmed that 60 per cent of UTR applications didn’t contain the necessary information which necessitated a follow-up phone call from HMRC staff. Some agents had been reluctant to help during those follow up calls. WTPG also referred to UTRs for offshore partners and SD confirmed he had just received a response to this point on behalf of a local group - he would check that response following the meeting and circulate it with the minutes.
Action 4: SD to provide response on UTR point for offshore partners and circulate response with the minutes. PG has requested that the response covers the point regarding non-resident partners in a UK partnership and their requirements to obtain UTRs.
4.2 WTPG acknowledged the good news on the scanners and felt that a communications exercise was needed to communicate the benefits. A discussion then ensued around the CWF1 and WTPG suggested that a simple request form for a UTR be introduced. BM confirmed that this is one of the options being explored. In order to reduce delays, HMRC intends that in future all UTRs would be issued from a single location and work is also to be undertaken to design a form that can be used to notify non self-employment sources.
5. Agent Dedicated Line (ADL)
5.1 LC provided background to the roll out of the ADLs across all Contact Centres and early indications were that call volumes are increasing but not all agents are using the service.
5.2 LC confirmed that the average speed of response was under 10 seconds and less than 2 per cent of calls are passed to Tier 2. WTPG explained that from their experience complex calls are not being escalated to Tier 2 and Tier 2 technicians were not always available to field technical issues. LC confirmed that Contact Centres have now implemented Tier 2 technicians on a rota basis and this is being monitored to see whether this is working both internally and externally.
Action 5: LC to provide service update on call backs for the June WTSG meeting.
5.3 LC acknowledged that the security questions process was an area causing some difficulty for agents calling the ADLs and confirmed that the questions asked of an agent are the same irrespective of whether they come through on the ADL or the normal line – the questions are tailored for the caller type and not the phone line. If the caller fails the security questions, the adviser won’t proceed. WTPG highlighted a problem that once through the security checks, if a query concerns figures for example. error in processing, the ADL adviser won’t respond on that as a result of new internal guidance.
Action 6: LC to check the position on new internal guidance in relation to enquiries concerning figures and clarify practice to PG members
5.4 WTSG members agreed that an article in WT35 should be published to focus on how we do telephone business together and a suggestion was made to produce a PDF document containing the contact numbers of the ADLs that agents could print off and use.
5.5 LC ran WTPG through the evaluation process carried out after the roll out of the ADLs had embedded. She highlighted the benefits identified from the evaluation and confirmed that users of ADLs were overall satisfied and felt there was an improvement in the service, especially call waiting times. The problems identified were mainly around complex calls. Agents’ perception of complex calls will vary from agent to agent and some are requesting the Tier 2 technician when the Tier 1 adviser could possibly handle the call.
5.6 LC agreed to produce a paper summarising the findings from the ADL evaluation and also to summarise the type of queries that are most likely to be handled by advisers at Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Action 7: LC to produce update paper to run past PG sub group members and then share with all of WTPG.
5.7 WTPG raised a complaint that HMRC staff may promise to return calls, normally within two days, but these calls failed to materialise. This requires review of the process.
6. ESC A19
6.1 SD confirmed that since the last WTSG meeting he had met with the HMRC business lead on ESC A19 and then they had jointly met with John Kimmer and his colleagues from the sub-group. The meeting had been useful. We are now clear that the points of concern are properly understood and have agreed actions going forward. There will be another meeting to review progress in July 2009.
7. PAYE Notices of Coding: Timing of issue
7.1 SD confirmed that a meeting with key stakeholders has been arranged for 8 June 2009 following initial discussions with DA and ICAEW who have articulated problems which will be discussed at the meeting. Unfortunately DA couldn’t make this meeting but MW indicated that he would attend in DA’s place, subject to client commitments.
7.2 AW asked whether the January 2010 issue of P2 PAYE Notices of Coding could be influenced by the outcomes of the June meeting.
Action 8: SD to explore this at the PAYE stakeholders meeting and report back outcome.
8. SA Repayments selected for security checks
8.1 BM apologised that there have been delays in receiving SA repayments and explained that these delays have been caused by a combination of a sharper peak of repayments and increased security checking but hoped that WTPG were now experiencing fewer delays. BM acknowledged that we need to make improvements where we can and be more flexible in how we manage the work flow in future and confirmed that a number of changes had been put in place in Customer Operations to address this.
8.2 BM confirmed that HMRC are reviewing the process and would like to change the message in the main transactional wording to indicate that an SA repayment has been selected for further checks. This would require an SA systems change that would be subject to funding. As a short term fix we had the capability to change the wording on the reverse of the SA Statement as this didn’t require a systems change and BM invited WTPG suggestions to feed back to colleagues.
8.3 A discussion ensued around the funding point and PG challenged this saying that the current position where a taxpayer received a note that a refund had been made either to the agent, or indeed into their own bank account, when that was not the case was just unacceptable and, indeed, wrong. In particular, PG expressed huge dissatisfaction with the wording on the HMRC website which states that a repayment has been issued to a client when in many cases this is not the case as the refund has been held up by a security check. This is misleading. It causes unnecessary work and worry for both customer and agent and is no doubt causing unnecessary sterile contact for the Department. The risk analysis requires review where the cases selected involve refunds of, inter alia, substantial overpaid payments on account arising as a result of falls in profit levels of long established reputable businesses, some cases in which the delay was up to three months. PG suggested that the funding requirement should be revisited in the light of the extra cash costs currently being caused, the unacceptable customer service issues and the reputational cost to the Department. BM acknowledged that this needed to be looked at and agreed to explore funding for change and other options. Even if funding could be found there was a minimum 12 month lead-in time for any changes as the IT functionality is hard-coded. It was agreed that BM would provide recent data in relation to volumes of SA repayments made and totals outstanding security checks.
Action 9: BM to provide recent data in relation to volumes of SA repayments made and totals outstanding for security checks in time for June WTSG meeting.
SA Filing & Payment Reminders
8.4 AMcV provided an overview of the review of all Self Assessment filing and payment reminders and explained that the objective is to review, rationalise, reschedule and redesign the whole suite of reminder forms including the statement of account.
8.5 AMcV highlighted a couple of successes from the review so far: the SA RITA508 Return Filing reminder issued after the penalty notice had been withdrawn and in February we issued a new final payment reminder (SA359). It has proved much more effective than the reminder it replaced in getting people who missed the deadline to pay or to contact HMRC if they had problems paying and, by doing that, has helped to increase the amount of SA tax paid in March 2009 by more than £650 million above last year’s figure.
8.6 AMcV agreed to share the filing and payment reminders review timeline and SD and AMcV will work on this together and share with PG members.
Action 10: WTPG to nominate a representative to work with SD and AMcV on the filing and payment reminders review and let SD have details.
Action 11: AMcV to share the review timeline with WTPG members.
9. WT Events
9.1 SD confirmed that there had been six WT events so far and confirmed they had gone extremely well.
9.2 SD outlined the main concerns expressed by PG before the events. They felt there was too much prescription and too little explanation where prescription was needed in parts of the new WT pack. They were also concerned that agents might feel that they were being asked to do HMRC’s work and that it would be too onerous. SD explained that the parts of the pack that were to being exposed at the events had been redrafted to address the prescription concerns, and questions to test that and the other concerns had been included in the feedback sheets. SD confirmed that he had carried out a quick analysis of the feedback questionnaire for four of the events and gave an overview of the statistical results. He confirmed that all written comments from the feedback questionnaires would be captured as part of the overall analysis.
9.3 SD said that the feedback so far had indicated that agents felt that too much may be asked of them in the new WT process. This was not a show stopper at this stage, but something we need to take care over. Agents were also asking for help from their representative bodies. WTPG discussed some of the various mechanisms within the professional bodies to support the agent representative involved in WT.
9.4 SD explained that the feedback so far had strongly welcomed the issues referral process and template. He said that if this was not contradicted at the remaining events, he would propose that we therefore move ahead and introduce the issues referral template on a trial basis possibly at the end of May. SD outlined various advantages to doing this.
9.5 SD explained that he wanted to finalise the WT pack as soon after the events as possible and suggested that we redraft the non exposed element of the pack now on an ongoing basis in accordance with the feedback received so far. SD agreed to write to PG with details of what he wanted their agreement to after the meeting.
Action 12: SD to contact WTPG members with details of the WT pack he is seeking agreement.
9.6 There was a brief discussion on the usefulness of an Annual Report produced jointly by WTPG and HMRC stating its achievements each year and expectations for the forthcoming year. This would be discussed further at the June 2009 SG meeting.
10. Update on New Powers
10.1 SN provided an overview of the Modernising Powers, Deterrents and Safeguards: Working with Tax Agents consultation document that had recently been published. He explained that it raises issues and ask questions about how HMRC interacts with tax agents to ensure that client returns and claims are correct when submitted to the Department. SN assured WTPG that HMRC were not looking to regulate agents.
10.2 WTPG felt that the consultation document was very well written but suggested the point should be made clear that HMRC are not looking to regulate agents. WTPG felt that the representative bodies should be consulted on their thinking and that local WT groups may be a useful source.
Action 13: WTPG to write to BR following the TAASG on how they would like to be involved in relation to the Working with Tax agents consultation document.
10.3 SN pointed out to WTPG that 30 per cent of all agents were not represented by the six bodies comprised within WTPG. SN emphasised that it was this 30 per cent who needed the support of WT. WTPG responded by stating that although it recognised the problem, it could not comment on agents not represented by its professional bodies.
New Compliance Checks
10.4 CG provided an overview of the work to date and highlighted the fact that all products had been exposed externally to a readership panel and published guidance was available in March 2009. She explained that all the products on the HMRC website are not final, not all the material is future proof. As the new powers embed we will test , learn and update the guidance accordingly. CG confirmed that key messages have reached front line staff to evoke the Powers. SN confirmed that very few applications for unannounced visits had been taken up. WTPG confirmed that all was quiet from their members so far.
10.5 CG and SN thanked WTPG for their involvement to date.
11. AOB
11.1 A number of incorrect surcharge notices have been issued to taxpayers who have negotiated a payment schedule under the Business Payment Support Service. This appears to arise as there is no override within the system to support surcharge notices and this may recur in August 2009, after the July default date. HMRC apologised for this.
11.2 BR thanked both Richard Mannion and Richard Shooter for their sterling efforts and contributions, insight and humour in WT across the years and formally welcomed Anne Wright and Martyn Warren for agreeing to represent their respective institutes in WT.
Date of next meeting is 24 June 09.
