that
the
is in five year high.
So, we all know about HM revenue and customs.
So, they've terminated the employment of 179 civil servants
for gross misconduct so far this year,
marking the highest number of such dismissals in at least five years.
So, there must be an element of people working,
which are potentially very close to the gross misconduct or work to rule.
I mean, the figure represents a 43% increase since 2020,
according to data obtained by the Telegraph,
through a Freedom of Information request.
Well, why doesn't this information come from the government?
Now, I mean, the main issue that I have had is that,
if you want to get in contact with HMRC,
you get to pay quite a lot of money to get there,
because there's normally not many people on the line,
and I've tried sort of early morning, late, midday,
and irrespective of the time, you still have at least a two hour wait,
if you can get through.
I mean, I think one site was on there for about four hours.
I mean, it wasn't actually peak.
And if you have other things to do in your day,
you can't just hang around, because I've had a number of times
where you're doing something else, you get distracted, and hello, hello,
is anybody there?
Nobody's there, put the phone down.
But even when you get in touch with people,
you have to be fully prepared, because I mean,
I can only see it that I was very unlucky,
or the training is very, very poor.
I mean, I've seen it with lots of people that I'm acquainted with.
If you change a job, or you go from permanent contracting,
or contracting to permanent, they think you can work both jobs.
So when it comes through with your tax code, tax code is glaringly wrong.
The system doesn't actually have the necessary information
to actually highlight this.
And then when you phone up HMRC, they say, oh, it
looks like this information is incorrect.
Oh, you're only working one job.
I'll remove the other and send out another stack of paperwork,
which is expensive and normally wrong.
So you have to sort of at least chase them again
another couple of times before they get the correct tax code.
And together with lack of training, as I foresee it,
it's a lot of cost to the taxpayer.
And the other thing is that there are loads of people
who do not recognize it until you think, hang on a minute,
where's all my money going?
It's all going in tax.
And then you get it back in six months' time.
So the government can actually utilize this money,
which you shouldn't have paid.
I mean, who can work two 40-hour jobs?
I mean, not many, if any people.
And it's just some process or procedure
which needs to be addressed.
So going back, gross misconduct, which
can lead to immediate dismissal, encompasses serious offenses.
So you've got that many people with serious offenses,
such as bullying, theft, intoxication, damage
to a company, property, gross negligence.
At HMRC, this could also include the unlawful disclosure
of sensitive taxpayer information or fraud
involved in misuse of company systems.
So there was a high-profile case where this work defrauded
the taxpayer over $300,000 in child benefit.
So it's falsely claiming that three of her children
were disabled and submitted fraudulent tax credit
claims for another 15 children using details from her work
computer to facilitate the crimes.
From memory, I think that the actual slap on the wrist,
shall we say, was very minimal.
I mean, you're taking a huge amount of money.
There should be a lot of checks and balances.
And you're probably looking at fraud to be 3% to 5%.
I mean, if a lot of these processes were tightened up
and a lot of this nonsense of sending stuff through the post,
because that is incredibly expensive,
we would need to have a leaner government in the way
of communication by different means.
Because you could have most people utilizing a mobile,
and they can get this information that way.
Just needs a bit of a joined up thinking.
So the customer service, as I said before,
is also at an all-time low.
So you're hanging on at a local number.
Most people would probably want to do this via mobile
so that they can carry on for the two to four hours
that they have to wait.
And a lot of times, it's sort of, oh, this isn't my role.
You need to phone up somebody else.
So over half of the 321 total dismissals
at HMRC, which has a workforce of 65,000,
in comparison in 2020, only 28% of the 441 dismissals
were due to gross misconduct.
So the increase is there.
So I mean, that's sort of somewhat doubled.
The wave of dismissals comes at a time
when HMRC is struggling with customer service,
described as being at an all-time low
as the agency faces challenges in managing a growing tax payer
population.
With plans for increased funding to recruit additional staff,
there is an emphasis on the importance of training.
New recruits to understand the highest
standards of conduct expected of them.
So I think there needs to be an element of,
through the portal, you can actually
challenge to say, OK, I challenge that tax code,
and here are the reasons why.
I've only got one job.
My job, AAA, I have finished.
And the job, BBB, is current.
Here is what I believe my current gross salary to be.
And then somebody in the back office
can actually deal with these particular information.
And then you could potentially get a redacted text message
to say, right, we've processed your request.
Please log in or say something like, you know,
the tax code has changed to X, Y, and Z.
I mean, we need to be mindful of securing our tax arrangements
but to be reasonably flexible on how we engage.
And you need to have the staff to deal with difficult cases.
But simplistic cases should be quite easy to do.
For example, there are lots and lots of people
are saying, oh, I've missed this credit on my pension.
How much is it?
How do I pay?
The process of paying, it should be straightforward,
where you log into the portal.
Oh, sorry, I've got a frog in the throat.
Log into the portal.
There's probably half a dozen major items
that are always reflected.
And they should be done with a very simplistic query.
You know, maybe not even signing in.
You just have enough information about you.
And then an email is sent to the relevant people.
Maybe that's a way of sorting it out.
But I suppose how many of these people
have just been let go because they
haven't been trained properly?
Or the individual has found a quicker or easier way.
Or they just don't meet the current environmental model
as new parties get elected and old parties leave.
So thank you very much for your time.
I hope you enjoyed this particular rant from mine.
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Sayonara.
Bye.