HMRC staff morale hits rock bottom

A staggering three-quarters of staff at
HM Revenue & Customs
(HMRC) feel their working conditions have deteriorated in the past year – more
than half, at 53%, believe it will be even worse in a year’s time.

Only a minority of HMRC staff, at 15%, said the integration of Revenue and
customs had been good for customers, while 50% said it had been bad. This is in
stark contrast to the attitude immediately after the merger, when 36% felt it
was good for customers, against 18% who thought the opposite, the Financial
Times reports.

The latest six-monthly staff survey, which was conducted in November when
HMRC lost 25m child benefit records, revealed staff morale was lower than at any
time since Revenue and Customs merged in April 2005 and just 17% of staff felt
they could recommend the department as a good place to work – only half of those
with the same view in May 2005.

HMRC said that, although it did not want to ‘shy away from the hard messages’
in the survey, it noted 48% of staff were ‘highly motivated’ to do their job
well – a solid 10 percentage points up on the previous two years. In addition,
more staff than in the past said they felt able to cope with the pace of change.

Further reading:

HMRC official: ‘department in chaos’

Read
story in the Financial Review