Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the replacement for the HM Revenue and Customs contract will involve provision and a costing for support for tax credits.
Answered by David Gauke
The Tax Credits systems will continue to be supported by HM Revenue and Customs until such time as all Tax Credits customers have migrated to Universal Credits. We also expect some retrospective work on Tax Credits to continue after the migration has completed for error/fraud/debt reasons. Costs related to providing this continuing support will be included in the contract replacement work.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many apprentices were removed from their apprenticeship programme to cover tax credit renewal work in the last two weeks of July 2014; and where such apprentices were based.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) trained and deployed a flexible resource of just over 2000 staff from across the Department and deployed them in stages from 23rd June until the end of the Tax credit peak to ensure that the peak was a better experience for customers this year than it has been in earlier years. The Tax Credit peak this year was a huge team effort with staff of all grades including senior members of staff volunteering to help support our customers by taking telephone calls.
We do not have a record of how many of these additional staff were apprentices.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the National Audit Office report, Managing and replacing the Aspire contract, HC 444, published on 22 July 2014, if he will estimate the savings to the public purse that he expects to accrue from the improvement in HM Revenue and Customs IT service availability identified in that report.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Over the 7 year period from 07/08 to 13/14 there is an annual c£3m productivity improvement a year on average.
HM Revenue and Customs is in the process of preparing a Business Case to manage the end of the Aspire contract in June 2017.
HMRC has one of the largest outsourced IT contracts in the world, enabling us to deliver a very wide range of services to more than 50 million customers.
We are committed to delivering all this for the minimum cost to the taxpayer. As the NAO report recognises, the Aspire contract helped the department to collect almost £506 billion for the UK in the last year alone as well as improving services to customers.
The NAO also recognises the progress that HMRC has made over the last two years in developing in-house technical skills, so that we are less dependent on external suppliers. For instance, we recently opened a new Digital Delivery Centre in Newcastle as part of our Digital transformation programme.
We will continue to improve the performance of the contract over the next three years.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff by grade and pay band were moved to the tax credit renewal work by HM Revenue and Customs business area in the last two weeks of July 2014.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) trained and deployed a flexible resource of just over 2000 staff from across the Department and deployed them in stages from 23rd June until the end of the Tax credit peak to ensure that the peak was a better experience for customers this year than it has been in earlier years. The Tax Credit peak this year was a huge team effort with staff of all grades including senior members of staff volunteering to help support our customers by taking telephone calls.
We do not have a record of how many of these additional staff were apprentices.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what data on UK taxpayers is held by Fujitsu; and where the relevant data centre is.
Answered by David Gauke
Fujitsu provide data centre hosting for many of HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) IT systems at multiple UK locations but they do so on HMRC's behalf and do not hold any data outside of the Department's direct control. HMRC ensure all of our systems are appropriately controlled so that IT providers do not have routine access to taxpayer information.
For security reasons we are unable to share the specific location of Fujitsu/HMRC data centres.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the extra cost to HM Revenue and Customs arising from the time taken to implement universal credit.
Answered by David Gauke
Any HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) costs that are a direct and clear consequence of supporting the introduction of Universal Credit are funded and met by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Universal Credit Programme and are included in the DWP Universal Credit Business Case.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many HM Revenue and Customs staff in each (a) grade and (b) pay band were loaned to the UK Border Agency on 10 July 2014 to cover staffing shortfalls.
Answered by David Gauke
The UKBA was closed in March 2013.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the HM Revenue and Customs leases for Abbey House and Parkside Court in Telford are up for renewal; whether Matheson House in Telford is part of the HM Revenue and Customs estate; and, if so, when its lease is due for renewal.
Answered by David Gauke
Abbey House is occupied by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) under the provisions of the STEPS Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, which runs until 2 April 2021. Parkside Court is occupied by HMRC under an inter department agreement with the Land Registry, who have principal responsibility for this property; the occupancy agreement expires on 5 January 2017. Matheson House is on the HMRC estate, and the lease is not due for renewal until 2 April 2021.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many external contractors and consultants were employed in each business area in HM Revenue and Customs at the latest date for which figures are available.
Answered by David Gauke
HM Revenue and Customs staff numbers for Consultancy and external contractors are reported in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14 in the Statistical Tables, Table 5: Staff Numbers (page 83).
HMRC annual report and accounts: 2013 to 2014 - Publications - GOV.UK
This data is not available by business area.
Asked by: David Wright (Labour - Telford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the total cost was of employing external contractors and consultants on HM Revenue and Customs-related work in 2013-14.
Answered by David Gauke
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) costs for external contractors are published on the Cabinet Office.gov.uk website.
HMRC costs for Consultancy are reported in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14 under Other Administration Costs: Other Expenditure (page 138) and Programme Costs: Other Programme Costs (page 140) and are audited by the National Audit Office. These costs include those for the VOA, which are consolidated with the costs for the core department.
HMRC annual report and accounts: 2013 to 2014 - Publications - GOV.UK