Corporate report

HMRC makes significant progress in its 10-year transformation to become a tax authority fit for the future

Updated 8 January 2019

HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) transformation is the biggest modernisation of the UK tax system in a generation. It involves making fundamental changes to the way the department works and the services it provides.

Our Locations Programme is the key to HMRC’s wider transformation. By changing people’s working environment, HMRC is helping to change how they work.

In 2015 we announced that HMRC aimed to bring its employees together in 13 large, modern offices, making it easier to collaborate and work flexibly.

The higher standard of building, designed to support digital, flexible ways of working, is an integral component of our broader plans to provide better services to the taxpayer at a lower cost. It is by making better use of technology and working differently that we can become a more highly-skilled organisation that is maximising revenue, increasing compliance and reducing the tax gap.

This briefing summarises the progress that HMRC has made with its Locations Programme and how it is helping to provide HMRC’s customers with better services.

We have now secured all of HMRC’s 13 regional centre sites, and building work is underway in 10 locations.

We are making significant progress. Since 2015 we have opened our first regional centre in Croydon and moved into our transitional site at Canary Wharf.

We’ve also secured buildings for our regional centres in Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff and Stratford, and most recently our regional centre in Nottingham. Our regional centre in Newcastle will be at our current location of Benton Park View. This is in addition to our 5 specialist sites, 8 transitional sites and our headquarters in Westminster.

HMRC’s Locations Programme is the largest office transformation programme in the UK and involves the development of more than 429,000 square metres of new office space. Its regional centres form phase one of the Government Hubs Programme. HMRC is working with private sector partners to deliver the programme and is sharing lessons with the Government Property Agency.

Through the Locations Programme, HMRC is on track to deliver savings of around £300 million up to 2025. It will deliver annual cash savings of £74 million in the tax year 2025 to 2026, rising to around £90 million from 2028, while modernising how HMRC works, and helping to improve customer service.

We’re aiming to create a great place to work through truly inclusive environments in open and modern workplaces, with the right technology to get the job done, in line with the vision for the Civil Service of the future. We are also delivering 4 other elements which will help create a brilliant Civil Service, through our focus on our customers, empowering our leaders to be confident and inspiring, while ensuring that our people develop better career paths in the locations we will be based in.

Enabling a modern tax authority

To transform the services we deliver for the UK we’re modernising pretty much every aspect of what we do. That means everything from the systems and technology that we use, to where and how we work, through to the skills we have, and what we ask of our leaders and managers.

By changing people’s working environment, we are helping to change how they work. HMRC’s regional centres will be high-quality, modern buildings that help people to collaborate and work flexibly, have high-speed digital infrastructure, up-to-date learning and development facilities.

Within the regional centres we will have a range of work spaces. The design and technology of our future offices will change the way we work. These work spaces will be at the heart of our new working environments, giving us the opportunity to become truly flexible and enabling us all to do a better job for the taxpayer.

By bringing activity under one roof, multi-skilled teams will be able to switch between communications channels and subject matter to meet customer demand, improving customer service.

Bringing together the different types of operational compliance work that HMRC does will help to increase our enforcement and compliance effectiveness. This makes it easier for our people to work across customer segments and across taxes to spot connections. High-speed digital infrastructure will support state-of-the-art data analysis and risk assessment systems to help HMRC target compliance activity.

Analysis shows that improved IT and high-speed broadband/WiFi at our Croydon Regional Centre are already allowing more flexible working. The design of different types of workspace has improved collaboration, quality and efficiency of work, improved information flows and improved training delivery. There is also improved disabled access and increased staff satisfaction with estate services, security and personal safety.

We are helping our people to prepare for their new workspaces by opening `test and learn’ facilities within existing city centre offices that mimic regional centre settings so our staff can test them out and begin to adapt to new styles of working. They also help our people to test the journey to our new locations, helping to ensure our people can quickly adapt to get the most out of the new environments so we are better able to serve our customers, collect revenues and protect the public purse through continued compliance activity.

Supporting our people through change

We know this change is difficult for some of our people, but want as many as possible to stay working with us for as long as possible and to move with us to regional centres. That’s why everyone who moves offices will have the opportunity to have a one-to-one conversation with their manager to help them move.

Back in 2015 we said that around 90% of our people who worked for us at that time, across all our locations, would be able to move to the new locations or see out their career in an existing HMRC building. Today, across the UK we still expect that to be the case or very close to it. During the last 2 years, we’ve held more than 11,000 of one-to-one conversations that have enabled people to talk through their personal circumstances, tell us what we can do to help them move and, in some cases, let us know if there’s a different office they could travel to.

We’re also continuing to look at how technology can allow for more flexible working styles and working hours, while reviewing our people policies to support new ways of doing things to make sure that as many people as possible are able to move with us. In terms of practical support, everyone who moves can claim financial support towards any additional journey costs for up to 5 years.

For colleagues who need reasonable adjustments to get to work, or at work, we strive to find workable solutions that are right for them and we’re making it easier for them to set out details of requirements during the one-to-one process.

Where needed, we will provide accessible parking either at or near to the regional centre. We will also consider other options including the use of the Access to Work scheme, taxis via drop off points and accessible public transport. We are also designing our new buildings to ensure that they are as inclusive as possible.

We recognise that not everyone will be able to move. We’re working with other departments to see if alternative roles can be found and we’re looking to make it simpler for people to apply for roles or move across. We’ve also created a new specialist support service to provide practical help, such as assistance with CVs and covering letters, advice on how to approach the job market, as well as interview preparation and advice.

We are spreading changes over several years and retaining 8 transitional sites for up to 10 years to minimise any disruption to our day-to-day operations. We have put a dedicated team in place to ensure that all areas of HMRC are minimising business disruption, embracing new ways of working and are ready to fully utilise the new workspaces.

HMRC’s regional centres

Our regional centres will be located in every region and nation of the UK:

• Scotland – 1 Sibbald Walk, Edinburgh – due to open in 2020
• Scotland – 1 Atlantic Square, Glasgow – phase 1 due to open in 2021, phase 2 to be confirmed
• Northern Ireland – Erskine House, Belfast – due to open in 2019 to 2020
• Yorkshire and the Humber – 7 and 8 Wellington Place, Leeds – due to open in 2020 to 2021
• North East – Existing site at Benton Park View, Newcastle
• North West – India Buildings, Liverpool – due to open in 2020
• North West – 3 New Bailey, Manchester – phase 1 due to open in 2022, phase 2 to be confirmed
• East Midlands - Unity Square, Nottingham – due to open in 2021 to 2022
• West Midlands – 3 Arena Central, Birmingham – due to open in 2020 to 2021
• Wales – Central Square, Cardiff – due to open in 2020 to 2021
• South West – 3 Glass Wharf, Bristol – due to open in 2019
• London, East and South East -14 Westfield Avenue, Stratford – due to open in 2020 to 2021
• London East and South East –1 Ruskin Square, Croydon – opened July 2017

HMRC will also establish 5 specialist sites for work that cannot be done elsewhere, notably where HMRC needs to work with its IT suppliers or other government agencies or departments. These specialist sites will be located in:

• Dover, Priory Court
• Gartcosh (Scottish Crime Campus)
• Telford (Plaza 1 and Plaza 2)
• Worthing (location to be confirmed)
• Ipswich (Haven House)

To minimise any business disruption and to keep our people working locally for longer in locations where we recognise that significant numbers will not be able to move, we are retaining 8 transitional sites in:

• East Kilbride (Queensway House to 2025 to 2026)
• Washington (Waterview Park to 2024 to 2025)
• Preston (location to be confirmed to 2025)
• Manchester (Trinity Bridge House to 2027 to 2028)
• Ipswich (Haven House to 2027 to 2028 and St Clare House to 2023 to 2024)
• Reading (Sapphire Plaza to 2024 to 2025)
• Canary Wharf (10 South Colonnade, until Stratford regional centre opens)
• Portsmouth (Lynx House to 2025 to 2026)

We will also retain a head office in Westminster.

Our plans are flexible enough to adapt

We always expected workforce plans to change, but we remain committed to our locations strategy, as it will provide the working environments we need to deliver future challenges.

Today we have just under 60,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) colleagues, up from 57,000 FTE in 2015. In part, this is due to recruitment of nearly 3,000 people into Customer Services. We also received extra investment in the 2017 Budget to support our work to tackle avoidance, evasion and non-compliance which led to the recruitment of an extra 1,400 FTE.

We’ve always had a pivotal role in making sure that goods flow into, and out of, the UK, and in making sure we collect any taxes and duty due on them. That’s why we’re now delivering essential programmes that will support access to European and world markets.

As we prepare for an EU exit, we are creating additional roles and have launched several recruitment campaigns.

Currently there are around 3,000 FTE working on EU exit (at 31 October). Depending on the final outcome of negotiations, we may need up to 5,300 FTE. However, we have already secured additional temporary accommodation in regional centre locations across the UK and increased the size of some regional centres to support this work.

As a department we’ve prioritised the projects that make the most difference, pausing some work and stopping other projects to make room for this EU exit work.

We are learning lessons

During the last 2 years we have achieved a great deal and are learning lessons from our first regional centre in Croydon and from our transitional site at Canary Wharf.

As Croydon was the first new Government Hub to open, we’re experiencing the working environment that many civil servants across the UK will be moving to over the next few years.

The Civil Service is keen to learn from our experiences here, as well as colleagues’ experiences in Canary Wharf, so they can make improvements to the design and operation of other hubs, understand the benefits these new working environments are bringing and deliver improvements for employees and the taxpayer.

Indeed, this is something we are feeding into the development of our other regional centres, making them even better. Our early regional centres will be test beds for continuous improvements and enhancements.

We’re working hard to become a more open and inclusive organisation – somewhere where everyone can be themselves at work, where everyone has a voice, and can have their say. We’re also becoming an organisation that truly reflects the communities we serve and, through our outreach programmes, actively encourages volunteering to support local communities.

We already had a range of policies and processes aimed at supporting our people, and these provided a good starting point. In 2015, we published a summary of a high-level People Impact Assessment, setting out what we would do in addition to these.

During the last 2 years, we’ve developed an even better understanding of the impacts and opportunities for our people as a result of our location plans, and in June 2018 published a detailed People and Equality Impact Assessment.

Our Locations Programme is leading the way as the first phase of Government Hubs. This means we are an exemplar. Our Inclusive Design Guide for regional centres is industry leading. It will ensure we create working environments that are inclusive as possible.

HMRC’s Smarter Working Programme is also beginning to help change the way our people work so that we make best use of modern technology and new buildings.

Next steps

Each of the regional centres will make a big contribution to the economies of the cities where we’re based by providing more high-quality, skilled jobs. That’s because the type of role we’re offering is changing.

We need tax specialists with digital skills, along with data analysts and digital experts. That’s why we plan to work with universities and local colleges to attract the best and brightest talent. We have cutting-edge systems that enable analysts to sort and sift billions of pieces of data to find discrepancies – so we need people who understand digital technology and can make the most of it.

In Bristol, 3 Glass Wharf will be our second regional centre to open. It remains on schedule to open in 2019 and we are less than a year away from the first moves. Similarly, in Belfast work on Erskine House is progressing well, with the opening planned for later in 2019.

Our move to regional centres is now well underway and is one of the biggest transformation programmes in Europe. We are on track to achieve our ambition of becoming the world’s most digitally advanced tax authority.