ARC evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on regional moves
ARC has submitted evidence to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) about HMRC’s plans for its buildings and locations.
In November 2015 HMRC announced the locations of its Regional Centres opening as part of the Building Our Future programme. This programme has been reviewed by the National Audit Office who produced a report in January 2017.
Following the NAO report, the PAC called for evidence and announced a hearing on Wednesday 25 January. Committee considered the report and whether or not ARC should change its stance on the programme and then submitted evidence to PAC highlighting some of the anticipated impact on staff as the programme continues.
This evidence has now been published and can be accessed here.
ARC has never formally announced a policy on BOF and we would not get anywhere by simply opposing the programme. The estate does need to be modernised and the Mapeley contract has proved to be, quite frankly, a bit of a disaster. Whether or not ARC would have handled the modernisation differently is irrelevant, we are not HMRC, but we are here to remind HMRC that its staff are its most valuable asset.
ARC has been clear that we expect HMRC to follow its own policies and to act fairly and consistently when discussing potentially difficult moves. We have said from the start that we will hold HMRC to account where it doesn’t and we will feedback where policies produce an unfair outcome. We have had some success here with, for example, the method of DTA calculation being changed.
As your President I remain committed to this as a policy and the evidence I submitted to PAC was written to bring out some of the issues that we are facing. But I have not lost sight of the other issues we face and Committee continue to work, tirelessly, on your behalf.