Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the backlog of tax credit cases which need to be dealt with by Concentrix and HM Revenue and Customs.

Concentrix is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is not responsible for, and does not hold information on, the number of staff Concentrix has employed in the UK in each year since 2014.

As organisations conducting activities on behalf of HMRC and handling HMRC citizen information, Concentrix and each of its sub-contractors were made aware of their obligation of confidentiality under S18 of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 and the Data Protection Act. This was done by the signing of corporate and individual non-disclosure agreements at the point of employment; face to face explanations of the requirements for security and confidentiality conducted in the first instance jointly by HMRC and Concentrix trainers. Later in the contract newly recruited employees were trained by Concentrix only trainers. Non-disclosure / confidentiality agreements were also put in place.

All of the 181,000 cases taken back by HMRC from Concentrix are now finalised. HMRC is also continuing to work through all requests for Mandatory Reconsiderations of Concentrix decisions. Concentrix is no longer responsible for checking tax credit claims on behalf of HMRC.