PCS Broad Left Network members
On 25 June HMRC (Revenue and Customs) management announced, without prior consultation with civil service union PCS, that it plans to engage a ‘Managed Service Provider’ (MSP) before the end of 2025. This is management-talk for outsourcing – ie privatising – work, particularly across the customer service group.
It is clear that HMRC has not learned the lessons from its last experience with an MSP.
Lessons from the last time
Under the then Tory government, between May 2014 and November 2016 the private agency firm Concentrix was used to handle calls about tax credits. The contract was terminated early following a disastrous experience – it was even debated in parliament, with MPs condemning HMRC and Concentrix for “gross failure of customer service”.
A parliamentary Work and Pensions Committee report concluded that there was a “cut first, think later” attitude, that “plunged claimants into humiliating hardship and debt.” 90% of appeals against decisions were upheld – and yet HMRC was pressuring Concentrix into finding even more cuts! The consequences for claimants were severe, with some feeling no option but to take their own lives.
The Concentrix staff taking these highly distressing calls weren’t trained in how to handle life or death situations. Staff themselves suffered mental harm through no fault of their own, also victims of this doomed contract.
Private companies are profit-driven organisations that should not be paid out of the public purse. This insufficient provision is baked into all outsourcing. Inadequate training and worse terms and conditions for staff are a recipe for providing a service on the cheap.
Yet Starmer’s Labour government – despite all its claims to “bring about the biggest wave of in-sourcing of public services in a generation” – is going down the same road. HMRC has indicated that outsourced staff will be used to address basic queries from service users, downplaying the complexity of the work in order to get as low a quote as possible. This knowing disregard for providing quality support for ordinary working people who rely on HMRC is unacceptable.
In addition to the ‘degrading of services’ – the words of the Public Accounts Committee, not ours! – there will be a negative and potentially job-threatening impact on civil servants on permanent contracts.
There can be no doubt that outsourced workers will be treated as a quick and cheap fix, instead of employing staff on a permanent basis and investing time and money into the training and retention. There is a real danger that a two-tier workforce will be created, and that the pay, terms and conditions of outsourced staff could be used by the employers to attempt to undercut permanently employed, union-organised civil servants.
Members in the Surge and Rapid Response team (SRRT – a department used to address surges in demand, work backlogs, or crisis situations across government) are first in the firing line, with most SRRT staff currently engaged in customer service roles.
PCS members in the Broad Left Network (BLN) say we must fight back! The HMRC group executive committee must make clear to HMRC its opposition to this move, including the lack of consultation. Every PCS branch in HMRC should organise members’ meetings to fully brief members and gather their views and fighting ideas. PCS should raise with members the prospect of industrial action or ‘action short of a strike’.
This issue should be included in a wider campaign in HMRC, to fight on pay, office attendance and employee relations. We should also call on MPs in the PCS Parliamentary Committee to raise opposition in parliament.
- If you agree, join the BLN and join the fight for a campaigning, fighting and democratic PCS: bln.org.uk
