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Corporate Responsibility

Statement from David Varney, Chairman of HM Revenue & Customs

HM Revenue and Customs employs about 100000 staff (or 20% of the whole civil service); we work from 300 locations occupying 900 offices; we utilise 250 major computer systems; we collect some £370 billion pounds per annum and disburse £12 billion at a cost of £4.6 billion. Last year we dealt with some 276 million customer contacts including answering 15 million telephone calls in less than 20 seconds.

The new Department has been set three main objectives:

  • Close the tax gap – improve the extent to which individuals and businesses pay the amount of tax due and receive the credits and payments to which they are entitled;
  • Improve the customer experience – support businesses and reduce the compliance burden;
  • Frontiers – strengthen frontier protection against threats to the security, social and economic integrity and environment of the UK in a way that balances the need to maintain the UK as a competitive location in which to do business.

At the same time we have to reduce our net staff numbers by 12500, save £507 million cumulatively by 2008 and move staff outside London and the south east. As you will see, we are not short of challenges.

Corporate responsibility is a vital element of HMRC because it helps us achieve our objectives and because the way we do business impacts millions of people, customers and HMRC employees. It doesn’t matter about the ‘corporate’ label – we believe that CR is the responsibility of all businesses, whether they are in the public, private or voluntary sector.

At HMRC we are committed to managing our business to maximise our positive impact on all our stakeholders (including our customers and suppliers), the community and the environment and to minimise and manage any potential negative impact. We are working towards becoming a leader in the field of CR, both within the public sector, but also standing alongside those in the corporate world who have done such a good job in raising the profile and importance of CR.

Please use the links from this page to see how we have put CR into practice to date and the improvements we are planning for the future.