Inland Revenue - EDS cuts tax workforce

The Inland Revenue this week denied that staff redundancies made by its IT outsourcing supplier EDS would affect service levels to taxpayers and their agents.

The outsourcer’s targets are specified in a confidential service level agreement, she added. ‘The way they choose to deliver it is for EDS to decide. The Revenue does not accept that they will reduce their level of service.’

The US-owned outsourcer has announced plans to cut staff by 5,200 worldwide.

EDS confirmed there would be some reductions in staff levels on the Revenue contract, but the positions affected would be removed from areas where ‘people were not providing value to the customer’.

Any changes EDS made in terms of resources would be agreed with the Revenue, said an EDS spokeswoman. ‘There is no way we would allow information to be released and it is unlikely anything will be announced before July. The customer is aware of every thing we do,’ she added.

The staff cuts at EDS come at a delicate time for the Revenue IT management team, which has come under fire for backlogs and confusion over self-assessment statements of account. In April, the Revenue took over control of the Contributions Agency, which added to the administrative burden.

At a meeting with tax software houses two weeks ago, Revenue officials denied that there would be any redundancies from teams in Telford or Shipley, where the Contributions Agency’s employer contributions team has been combined with the Revenue’s electronic lodgement business support team.