.png)
.png)
It took an intervention from the Cabinet Office for HMRC’s top management to unequivocally state that poor results in the government-wide staff satisfaction survey would not be a factor in choosing offices for closure, Taxation understands.
Prior to the event, the Revenue chief executive’s office had watered down a similar message, with the result that the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) for civil servants and the Association of Revenue and Customs (ARC), the trade union that represents the taxman's senior employees, both passed motions that threatened a boycott of the worker poll, known as People Survey.
The issue gained prominence with an appearance by HMRC excom member Steve Lamey at a staff meeting in Liverpool, at which he allegedly said offices with the lowest engagement scores would be more likely to be chosen for closure. This followed two years in which the Revenue had come last in the survey of around 100 government departments; management has come under serious criticism.
Following a Freedom of Information Act request, Taxation has seen email correspondence received and sent from the office of HMRC CEO Lesley Strathie, which show the PCS and ARC received complaints from members after a remark from Mr Lamey on the Revenue intranet suggested engagement (though not just the survey scores) would be one of the factors taken into account when offices are selected to be shut down.
Dame Lesley issued an intranet message, saying poor engagement would be considered only because it made offices less productive. HMRC’s press office prepared a media statement, which claimed, ‘Staff engagement does not decide where we maintain a physical presence’. It went on to flatly deny survey scores were a criterion in closures.
The CEO’s office edited the draft release, removing the first claim and amending the second to reiterate that ‘employee engagement on its own would never determine an office’s future’.
On 17 May, during the week in which the unions’ conferences were discussing boycott motions, Dame Lesley was called to an urgent meeting with the private secretary to Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary.
She subsequently issued a revised statement. It said, ‘Decisions on office closures are only taken [sic] after exhaustive consideration of a wide range of factors, but People Survey scores are not one of those factors.’
An email from the Cabinet Secretary’s office said the statement was ‘a very good note’. Steve Lamey was then instructed by Dame Lesley to either revise his original intranet answer or remove it and post a link to her latest statement; he chose to do the latter.
