CCPG10110 - Introduction: about this guidance

Customs Civil Penalties can be issued by compliance staff within:

  • Individuals and Small Business Compliance,
  • Large Business, International Trade
  • the National Clearance Hub,
  • Border Force

The guidance is split into:

The technical guidance is written for compliance officers and Civil Penalty Officers (CPOs).

The operational guidance is for customs civil penalty work done by Compliance Officers.

There is separate operational process guidance at the end of this manual for those working in Interanational Trade and for staff outside International Trade who do CCP work.

The associated public notice is Notice 301 ‘Civil Penalties for Contraventions of Customs law’.

Civil Evasion Penalties and Criminal Prosecution

This guidance does not deal with Civil Evasion Penalties (CEP) or criminal prosecution. These are covered in Notice 300 ‘Customs Civil investigation of suspected evasion’ and the CEP guidance (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) .

However, in all cases where a monetary error is identified, Compliance Officers must first consider if there is any reason to suspect conduct involving dishonesty.

Where evasion is suspected, Criminal Investigation and Civil Evasion Penalty (CEP) action must be ruled out before considering Customs Civil Penalty (CCP) action. You should refer to the PN300 Operational Framework for guidance on this process.

In cases where conduct involving dishonesty is not suspected, HMRC may take Customs Civil Penalty (CCP) action and may issue a Civil Penalty Warning Letter (CPWL) or Penalty Notice.

GDPR

Any processing of personal data will be carried out under Article 6(e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) HMRC Privacy Notice

Any processing of special category data will be carried out under the Article 9 of the GDPR and Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 HMRC appropriate Policy document

Retention of personal data will be in line with the HMRC Records Management and Retention and Disposal Policy

Any sharing of personal data outside of HMRC will follow the: