ARC NEWS February 2010

news issue NO 35 | FEBRUARY 2010

the union of choice for senior managers and professionals in HMRC

THIS ISSUE: “Alexander Cockburn used to call this pogoism.”

Editorial, p2 “Compulsory redundancies, while remaining the last resort, are not ruled out.”

Terry Cook. p9 “Do you have to travel, and if you do, is there a low-carbon form of transport?”

Mark Lovesey, p12 “I have taken a jaundiced approach to reviews from on high.”

Iain Campbell, p18 “One of the reservations about being proactive on religion and belief is the concern about the perceived difficult interaction with the policies in other areas of equality.”

Martin Fletcher, p22

Flexibility bends both ways

“Even the Taxpayers’ Alliance seems to take a moral view…”

Back Page

Terry Cook looks for a two-way street

TERRY COOK ARC PRESIDENT The ancient Chinese reserved their most terrifying curse for those who had really upset them: “May you be ARC President in interesting times”.

Since May 2008 I’ve had through my in-tray: an unacceptable pay offer and a pay ballot; the near-collapse of the banking system followed by the crippling of the

public finances in bailing it out; a welcome transformation in the way the international community views tax havens; a political fund ballot; the proposals on the Civil Service compensation scheme – and still time for a general election and the threats to our pensions that the campaign will certainly throw up.

And all along there has been the undercurrent of Workforce Change. On page 9 we reproduce the posting that continued on page 8 >>

arc-forum.org

EDITORIAL

Editorial Welcome to the first issue of 2010, and a happy New Year to all our readers, as they used to say in the Beano. I hope that you had a good break at Christmas, got lots of presents, some actually desired, and managed to keep up the seasonal cheer as the politicians competed with each other to promise the most horrendous slash-and-burn of the civil service to pay for the rescue of the banking system.

My own Christmas present arrived early in the New Year, weighing in at exactly seven pounds (the metric weight sounds much less impressive, so I won’t give it) and making the noise of a buzz saw cutting through a succession of four-by-one planks. Emma Victoria, since you ask, and, yes, like her siblings and step-siblings, routinely assumed to be my grandchild. Cliché it may be, but there is nothing like the arrival of a baby to set you thinking about the future.

A benevolent government provided me with a great nursery (pretty rare then, but my mother had been recently widowed), a decent place to live instead of our two-room slum, brilliant teachers at a purpose-built school with all mod cons, and then paid me to go to the best university in the world1. We all have the occasional health scare, but I have never known the visceral fear of my third world contemporaries – or that of our uninsured brothers and sisters in America – that I or my loved ones may fall ill and be unable to afford treatment. It’s natural to wonder whether Emma, and her brothers and sisters, will get anything like that in a world that you and I can only imagine now.

The idea that we baby-boomers have spent the family capital and left our children to pay the bills is suddenly fashionable. Alexander Cockburn used to call this pogoism (as in the stick), the attempt to persuade people that all our ills are to be cured by individual action, without any blame being attached to, for example, polluting corporations, or, in our own day, reckless bankers. But you and I know that there is such as thing as society2. We also know that, whatever future governments decide about how much money to raise and how to spend it, HMRC will have the job of collecting it, and, increasingly in some areas, of distributing it. Will you get any thanks? Of course not, especially not from your employers, who will follow historical precedent in pretending that there is some magical separation between the financial decisions they make and the mechanism whereby the money to pay for those decisions is raised.

But, on behalf of Emma and her cohort, I thank you in advance.

1 The London School of Economics. Other universities are available. There’s that place up the Thames, for example. You know, too stupid to keep Samuel Johnson, joined the wrong side in the insurrection against democracy. They do boating and things... it’s on the tip of my tongue.

2 Twenty years ago this would have been too political a point for an arcnews editorial, but we now have David Cameron’s confirmation that the most extreme manifestations of pogoism are no longer acceptable.

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This issue contains some essential routine – we have an AGM in May, elections to conduct, as well as a report back from Terry, page 14, on what we did with last year’s instructions from the AGM. HMRC’s duty to the next generation is not just financial, as Mark Lovesey points out on page 12. Iain Campbell examines HMRC’s capability on page 18 and on page 26 looks at the latest amazing capers of ESS. The regulars are all here too, diverse as ever. I hope we continue to cover all your concerns. We will soon survey readers to check that arcnews is doing what you want it to, but don’t wait for that. If you think we don’t get the balance right, email me and let me know where we are going wrong, or, if you wish, where we are going right.

Avanti!

Will Richardson, Editor

news

the union of choice for senior managers and professionals in HMRC

arcnews is published by the Association of Revenue and Customs 8 Leake Street, London SE1 7NN 020 7401 5559 (Terry Cook, President) 020 7401 5573 (President’s Secretary) 020 7401 5552 (fax) 020 7401 5590 (membership) enquiry@arc-union.org.uk Editor: Will Richardson: arcnewseditor@googlemail.com Mobile: 07973 895887 Design & Production Lexographic: arcnews@lexographic.co.uk Print: Broglia Press, Poole To advertise or place an insert in arcnews, contact arcnews@lexographic.co.uk The views published in arcnews are not necessarily the views of the editor or the union. arcnews is printed on environmentally-friendly paper produced from sustainable forests.

Get more involved at arc-forum.org

It is a members-only site and you will need to register the first time you visit. Registration is simple, but if you are new to forums, you can e-mail the forum administrator at fletcherinsussex@btinternet.com and Martin Fletcher will provide a “help card” to explain how the forum works.

The forum is becoming a useful place to read about things happening in the union, and also to pass on your views. And you will be able to catch up on the latest by reading Terry’s President’s Blog.

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

COMING UP...

LGB&T History Month Some readers will have seen on arcforum that HMRC is producing a booklet in support of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGB&T) History month, which is this month. It will set the scene for how things used to be for LGB and T people, how they are now and, very importantly, how we need them to be in the future. It was launched at an event in London on 3 February and published on the Intranet later that day. The booklet will include sound bites from HMRC LGBT people describing their experiences at work over the years.

Sarah Guerra, ARC Committee member and FDA Diversity Champion, told arcnews “ARC is firmly committed to the principles of equality and diversity in both employment and the delivery of services. This means treating people fairly and making services accessible to all. ARC seeks to provide, and

encourage others to provide, services and employment in an environment which promotes equality, values diversity and celebrates excellence.

We feel LGBT History month is an important annual event allowing us to celebrate the influence and achievements of LGBT people within the Department and wider society.

We very much welcome this work by HMRC, acknowledging and celebrating as it does the very real, positive contribution of LGBT staff to the Department.”

The FDA has a LGB&T network. It is also holding a LGBT history month event on 16 February. For more information keep your eye on the FDA website, arc-forum or contact Ro Marsh ro@fda.org.uk.

arcnews classifieds HOUSE IN UMBRIA, ITALY Only £275 per week for two people and £325 for more.

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Lovely views of Lake Trasimeno, Lake Chiusi and surrounding countryside. Located in a quiet hamlet a mile from Villastrada with local store, bar and restaurant, but only fifteen minutes drive to historic town of Castiglione del Largo with shops, restaurants and lake. Many places to visit nearby in Umbria and Tuscany only a twenty minute drive away. Rome and Florence within easy reach by car/train. For more information, email Andy Allan on andrew.allan17@btinternet.com or phone 01732 464492 (eve).

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

YOUR ADVERT HERE arcnews classifieds are a great way to put your wares in front of 3,000 members. It costs £30 per insertion per issue and all you need to do is email arcnews@lexographic.co.uk with your contact details, the text for your advert and for how many issues you would like the advert to run.

You can even include a photograph of the item/property you are advertising for only £10 extra.

If you would like the advert to be more than just text and a picture we can also design the advert for you, for a small fee, and then send you back the artwork so you can use it in other publications or on the web.

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BITS & PIECES

Elections for ARC Committee 2010-12

The two year life of the current ARC Committee ends at our AGM on 19 May 2010. Having advertised the Officer roles in the last arcnews it’s now time to ask people to step forward and join Committee, the senior group of ARC activists. Committee isn’t a closed shop.

And you don’t have to be a Tax Inspector, or work in London, or have been a Civil Servant for years. We’re looking for a broad cross-section of people to represent the diversity of ARC’s membership. If you join you will be entitled to facility time to enable you to carry out your role.

There are 15 committee seats up for election by the whole membership.

Nominations must be returned to Rob O’Neill, ARC Secretary, 8 Leake Street London, SE1 7NN to arrive by midday

Number of reserved seats Members in the Senior Civil Service

1

Members below Band 7

1

Members employed as lawyers

1

Members employed as administrators, economists, statisticians or accountants 2 Members located in Northern Ireland

1

on 14 March 2008.

There are a limited number of committee seats to be filled, representing certain groups of members (see box above). Where the number of nominees from the group is fewer than the number of seats reserved for that group, the relevant seat(s) will lapse for the period of office of committee subject to any by-election under Rule 23.3.2. Where

a nominee is a member of more than one group, that nominee will satisfy the requirement for reserved seats in respect of all the groups to which he or she belongs.

Each nomination must specify the group or groups of which the nominee is a member, carry a commitment by the nominee to serve if elected and be signed by not less than two members (see specimen form below).

Election If more nominations are received then there are vacancies there will be an election. A nominated candidate may, before 22 March 2010, withdraw the nomination or submit to the ARC Secretary an election address of not more than 400 words. This will be circulated with the ballot material.

Specimen Committee Nomination form To be completed by the members nominating: We nominate the candidate below to serve on the ARC Committee (2010–2012).

Name

Centre

Signature

Date

Name

Centre

Signature

Date

To be completed by the candidate: I accept the nomination and agree to serve if elected.

Candidate name

Centre

Group(s) Signature

Date

Contact telephone

Email

Address

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arcnews no.35 | February 2010

BITS & PIECES

It’s that time again...

Formal notice of the 2010 ARC AGM

Timetable for 2010 Annual Meetings

Last date for receipt of motions

ARC

FDA

ARC AGM Wednesday 31 March

FDA ADC Thursday 11 March

In accordance with Rule 17.1.2 I give formal notice that the ARC Annual General Meeting for 2010 will be held on Wednesday 19 May at the NUT (National Union of Teachers), Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD commencing at 10 am.

Last date for receipt of names and official addresses of delegates, ARC AGM together with amendments Monday 19 April to motions for the FDA Annual Delegate Conference

FDA ADC Thursday 15 April

Agenda Committee

ARC AGM: to be arranged

FDA ADC: to be arranged

Final agenda to be issued to members in the week commencing

ARC AGM Monday 3 May

FDA ADC Monday 3 May

AGM/ADC

ARC AGM 19 May

FDA ADC 20 May

As usual the Annual Dinner will take place on the evening of our AGM, (Wednesday 19 May) see full timetable in the box. And to see what we actioned from last year’s AGM see pages 14-17.

Rob O’Neill ARC Secretary

The ARC Dinner 2010

some I’m sure who won’t, but that’s another story).

The full menu and booking form will be in the next issue of arcnews together with further details on the ARC AGM (how to register, how to get there, access, parking etc). But in the meantime, get the dates in your diary now!

For this year’s ARC Annual Dinner (on Wednesday 19 May) we are returning to the splendid Riverside Room at Savoy Place, the London home of the Institution of Engineering and Technology – those who went last year will I’m sure remember the magnificent view of floodlit London landmarks like the Eye and Big Ben (and there are

Health & Safety tip of the month

We all have a duty to keep ourselves safe, by cooperating with safety measures and not putting ourselves or others in danger. This is just common sense – something we all use every day.

It’s important we aren’t put at risk by other people’s actions, but if we ignore our own

Employers have a duty to protect workers

responsibilities, real risks can get missed.

and the public from dangers caused by their work – and the health and safety executive is committed to making sure they do that. But health and safety isn’t entirely someone else’s responsibility.

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

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BITS & PIECES Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) Women’s Network Launch event: 11 December 2009

...and Still I Rise Sarah Guerra reports from the Black Asian Minority Ethnic Women’s Network Launch Event, held in London on 11 December 2009.

Maureen Martin pictured with Terry Cook by the ARC stand.

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It’s some weeks now since I proudly attended the launch event of the HMRC Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women’s network.

The idea came from ARC members and has been developed and driven by them – primarily Beverley and Maureen Martin. I and several other interested women have sat on the steering group and helped to plan and deliver the launch event.

And after years of sitting around talking about the issues in HMRC it was great to finally see some real action and positive steps.

The BAME Women’s network developed because those individuals involved knew instinctively things were not right in HMRC. This feeling is backed up by the extensive research showing that BAME women suffer a double disadvantage – gender and race, and by the Department’s own record. (see my article on the race equality duty report on

p24 of this issue) They put their case to Bernadette Kenny and she agreed – and so the network had an Ex-Com sponsor.

The network aims to give BAME women the support and encouragement they need to help them develop in their careers. The BAME women’s network is different from the Race network, which is a department-wide network open to all staff across all races. This network is part of the gender network, like the Senior Women’s Network. One of the key issues for the network is to challenge the fact that BAME women tend to be in the more junior grades and cannot seem to progress. The BAME women’s network therefore is for BAME women from all grades.

The launch was a mix of speakers and ‘workshop’ style sessions. As always with these things there wasn’t enough time, but the vibe in the room was great. I can’t possibly give you a blow-by-blow account so I have tried to give you the essence of each speakers’ contribution.

Bernadette Kenny (Gender Champion) suggested the network look at three things in particular: ‘support’, ‘challenge’ and ‘ambition’. She said sharing experiences is invaluable and everyone can learn from each other. She ended by quoting Maya Angelou: ‘We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.’

Dave Hartnett (HMRC’s Race Champion) shared his experiences of being a child from an impoverished working-class Irish family. He felt the Department did not do enough to help people shine, adding that it was not enough for the Department just to say ‘diversity is important’ and wait for a mystical process to help people to progress. He highlighted how the number of black women now almost equals the number of black men at SCS level. As part of his commitment to the network he offered an opportunity for 12 BAME women’s network members to shadow him, an idea which Bernadette agreed to support. He touched on the need to get together with the trade unions to look at promotion and development for ethnic minority groups and congratulated the network and

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

BITS & PIECES

the unions for promoting BAME women and for helping him to understand cultural issues. Dave ended by offering his commitment to make a difference.

There were two ‘interactive sessions’. I did a short session on reverse mentoring.

Melanie Dawes shared her experience of doing reverse mentoring with HMRC’s Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Network (LGB). Ken Mortimer (the co-ordinator of HMRC’s LGB Network) spoke about how reverse mentoring could help people to understand difference. The other session started with a quiz to test participants’ awareness of famous BAME women, followed by a discussion of how much people knew and how they felt about HMRC’s diversity.

Baroness Uddin (top right) was one of the most refreshing speakers I had heard in a long time – it was like watching my mum! She shared her experiences of being a peer and fighting racism during her career. She knew some thought she had only been selected as a peer because she was Muslim – but she didn’t let that bother her. The Baroness sagely pointed out how launch attendees had shown talent in getting to where they have in HMRC. ‘There are no limits to our ambition’ and ‘we have to break bolts on doors which are closed to us,’ she said.

Then came the real stars of the show in my view: Jacquie Baird and Sadhia Hussein. They both told their personal stories. Jacquie started as an AO in

Race or Gender Diversity Initiative

Negative experience of initiative

Never heard of initiative

Positive experience of initiative

1

Creation of diversity strand networks for gender – Senior Women’s network or race network

-

8

14

2

“Achieving your Potential”: a personal development 5 programme targeted at members of diversity networks

12

5

3

On-line diversity training packages

3

9

12

4

Development Programmes Culture 2000/Pathways

-

12

12

5

Research project with Cranfield University into the experiences of BAME senior managers

-

17

2

6

National Mentoring Consortium

10

6

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

Customs and Excise and has gradually worked her way up to grade 7. She gave a first-hand account of her reaction to getting a ‘not met’ in her performance assessment and her belief that some of the difficulties she experienced were because of her race. She said one of her teacher’s once told her that in order to succeed she had to perform 20% better than anyone else. At the time, Jacquie said she did not believe the teacher, but on reflection she felt it was true.

Sadhia Hussain currently works in DMB and is a magistrate in her spare time! She made me cry: when I first met her, I suggested she could do a presentation at the launch but she refused point blank – but she was there just a few weeks later! Sadhia focused on her experiences of being a member of the BAME women’s network steering group. This has already given her the opportunity to attend meetings with Dave Hartnett and Melanie Dawes. She was a living testament to the power of positive role models.

And so that was the launch. Although we sweated blood to make the day perfect – in many ways that was the easy bit – the team are already planning a series of events in 2010 and lining up people for mentoring and shadowing. If you want to know more contact me or have a look on the intranet site! | arcnews

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TERRY’S FRONT

flexibility bends both <<continued from front page

appeared on arc-forum on Wednesday 13 January. I followed this up with emails to the members I knew about who would be getting surplus letters – fortunately a tiny handful out of those working in the affected offices, with the majority presumably already having made commitments about what they would do when time was called.

It’s my hope that, using the good relationships we have built up with managers at all levels, we can work together to secure for each person an option that suits them. But people who wish to continue their careers have – quite reasonably in my view – expressed surprise that as senior staff they have been left to find a solution for themselves rather than being placed by a central HR function. I’ve passed on the message to our new head of talent, Andy Egginton, about how strongly ARC members feel that people in our grades should not be left to the vagaries of the internal job market but that

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People Function should take the lead in ensuring both that people’s career aspirations can be met and also that the organisation maximises the value it gets from them.

Another issue that we’ve taken to the Business Workforce Change since the announcement had its origin in another posting on arc-forum, before Christmas: The Workforce Change programme is moving towards the final stages.

Within the next few months, it is likely that we’ll be told that the already announced office closure programme will be implemented.

I have already asked members who think they may be ‘at risk’ to identify themselves (many thanks to those who have) and ARC Centres have recently been helping us to identify the locations in which our members are based, but they may not, for example, be aware of informal arrangements whereby members

work some of the time from an office other than their normal base.

If you have such an arrangement in an office that is earmarked for closure under the WfC programme, will you be able to cope when the office closes? If not, and you have not already told us, please contact Terry Cook – terry@fda.org.uk or 020 7401 5559.

This came out of reading an excellent newsletter from the Senior Women’s Network, which highlighted the importance of the flexibility offered by drop-in arrangements at local offices to those working carers with long commutes or jobs involving a lot of travel. As far as I know this has never been properly factored into any accommodation planning, though I bet it was raised by Centres in responding to the original proposals for their locality.

If people will be less able to do this now

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

TERRY’S FRONT

th ways

January This is the text of the posting that Terry placed on arc-forum on 13

HMRC has today announced that it intends to withdraw from some 130 offices across the country in the period to 31 March 2011. For the first time on any scale it is offering voluntary departure on compulsory terms. And compulsory redundancies, while remaining the last resort, are not ruled out. As I put it in the last edition of arcnews, we are clearly entering the end game for the Workforce Change process, at least for the “stranded” sites.

guarantee because of the local situations we may face and because it remains unclear how far we will be able to achieve necessary staff reductions and business changes on a voluntary basis, over the period to 2011.”

we can to support them and protect their interests. But members will also be involved in managing the process and in ensuring that business as usual is delivered, at these locations and elsewhere. We have pressed senior management to ensure that they are fully prepared for and supported in the difficult role they will have to play.

This is the context that we have been A concern for ARC members more working within since then and the generally was likely to be the reintroducunfolding of the estates rationalisation tion of compulsory change of residence programme over the last 18 months or agreethat by d governe transfers. When this was tabled at the so has been In fulfilment of a motion passed at last d provide end of last year we and PCS made it ment. In ARC’s view it has year’s AGM, our negotiators have asked clear that we would challenge it. As yet valuable protection to people affected. for the Workforce Change programme we have seen nothing to suggest that It has ensured that the process has to be reviewed in the light of changed ed measur a in through HMRC intends to enforce mobility across been carried economic circumstances, with stopaconsult the board but we will continue to moniand orderly way, with regular ping the programme being a possible tor this. tion and negotiation, and has provided outcome. However, it was quickly clear between staff balance ble reasona a A further motion at the 2009 AGM that HMRC was not prepared to do that. interests and the business drivers. In pointed to the grading imbalances Today’s announcement represents accordance with another motion from in different parts of the country and another step in a process that started the 2009 AGM, we have been using it instructed Committee to engage with some time ago. In May 2008 – as a to campaign for clear and transparent Workforce Change to ensure that there result of long and often very difficult preare who people to policies relating is strategic long-term planning across negotiations – an agreement was consurplus in offices outside reasonable all urban centres, to equalise grading cluded between the Department, PCS daily travel of another location. and achieved more balanced career and ARC which covered a number of and promotion opportunities. As I In addition to the agreement, during staffing issues relating to Workforce explained in the last arcnews, we have the statutory period of meaningful conChange and other aspects of transbe will TUS ced announ now seen very little progress on this and it is sultation formation. It recognised that reducing acting is HMRC something we will be pursuing in 2010 vigilant to ensure that the risk of compulsory redundancy or with People Function. in accordance with the Civil Service compulsory moves of home were the the Cabinet Office/ Code, ment Manage If you are concerned about how the key issues for the unions, but it did not situag handlin for l protoco CCSU plans announced today are likely to commit the unions or the Department and any relevant surplus staff of tions affect you, or are unclear about the to a common view on the workforce ental guidance. ARC along Departm implications they may have for you, change programme or the accomalso challenged them have PCS with please contact me straightaway on panying business restructuring. The of aspects equality the of on some 020 7401 5559 or terry@fda.org.uk. letter from Don Makepeace to Simon .

Change ce Workfor Boniface (Departmental Trade Union In recent months we have been workSide Secretary) setting out the terms of ing with Centres to establish how big the Workforce Change agreement said an impact a closure programme would at paragraph 55 that: have on ARC members. As a result of “You have sought a guarantee that that we know that we have very few the department will avoid compulsory people working in these offices. It goes redundancy and moves of home. without saying that we will do all that The Department is unable to offer a

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

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TERRY’S FRONT

then there are inevitably going to be diversity issues (in fact TUS has been highlighting recently the scant attention paid to the equality impact of the Workforce Change programme).

I got a very thoughtful response from a member describing her 70-miles-eachway drive to work, and the importance to her of the options offered by small offices much closer: My local offices are [X] and [Y]. [Y], in particular, has been a lifeline.

Last week during the bad weather I worked there all week. Usually I try to work there once a week (not always possible) as do a couple of other G7/ G6s who live locally but work away.

My manager is comfortable with these arrangements as I am fully contactable. It also gives me the benefit of avoiding 4 hours of travel and benefits the department which gets at least as much work from me if not more…Yes you are right about the drop-in arrangements and also about benefiting my work/life balance by giving me a break from a long drive or train journey She recognises that where she lives suits her. But equally her current arrangement works for HMRC in all sorts of ways, and the small offices facilitated it. It’s the kind of win/win 10

“ In a staff dial-in on the fateful Wednesday Lesley Strathie said that she was happy that some of the people affected wanted to “stay and strive” for the organisation, but it would take “’give and take’ and flexibility for people to be prepared to move lines of business, to move to different types of work and to move a bit further in many cases.” situation that we want to do our best to preserve or to achieve for members.

In a staff dial-in on the fateful Wednesday Lesley Strathie said that she was happy that some of the people affected wanted to “stay and strive” for the organisation, but it would take “’give and take’ and flexibility for people to be prepared to move lines of business, to move to different types of work and to move a bit further in many cases”. I’m sure those things have not been issues for people in our grades in the past.

But we look for a matching willingness to give and take from our employer. We need to make sure that the flexibility isn’t all expected to be on one side.

This isn’t the end of Workforce Change – there are still many people with a pre-surplus tag sitting in other blighted offices and the Department has yet to decide how it’s going to address their situation. But if there is one ray of sunshine that emerges from the midJanuary gloom it’s that at last we are seeing the Department work as a single organisation. Five Regional Directors are co-ordinating the process, with an explicit remit to manage this right across HMRC business rather than in the lines of business. As Lesley said on January 13 to someone calling from Ripon: It won’t simply be down to a local business manager and business stream whether you move or not to a vacancy, you know you all work for HMRC and we’re absolutely committed to working together to move our people and I think that’s something that is a job for all of us in the organisation People across HMRC working together in a co-ordinated way. What a great idea, why did no-one think of it before – do you think it might catch on? | arcnews

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

BITS & PIECES

HMRC taxes the profession The Chartered Institute of Taxation holds an annual general knowledge quiz, and the same HMRC team has won it for the third year in succession.

David Edney reports on their triumph.

Every job in HMRC provides us with different skills and competences. It would seem that a posting to the Tax Law Rewrite project is good for developing general knowledge skills – perhaps not surprising when the team members have to cover a wide sweep of corporation tax and income tax, and some elements of the latter still bore echoes of Mr Pitt’s original.

The project has involved extensive consultation with professional bodies and professional firms, and in the spirit of co-operation TLR has joined in the CIOT London Branch annual quiz for the last few years.

For the third year in succession, the team drawn from present and past members of TLR ran out as winners, this time competing under the name of The Pelicans (readers

can ponder for themselves the meaning of this).

A last minute team change was necessary – Dennis Dixon kindly stepped in to make a guest appearance, joining the regular line-up of Guy Lawrenson, George Little, Richard Davey, John Pearce (a CIOT member in his own right) and David Edney. The question master was Dave Hartnett, for the second year running. It was not clear if this was going to be to the advantage of a team from HMRC, and Dave did seem concerned when the team were uncertain about which towns contained tax offices. Dave quite rightly insisted on strict accuracy of drafting in the questions, so much so that at one point his “clarification” more or less gave away the answer – but despite the handy clue we still got the wrong answer.

Each round included a question with a tax connection. The team correctly identified an extract from Beethoven’s 1818 tax return, and also remembered the year in which the Budget imposed a flat rate benefit charge on mobile phones, but couldn’t identify

which is the country nearest the North Pole to have a tax treaty with the UK and, rather embarrassingly for the Rewrite team, incorrectly believed that “incomprehensible” could be found in the Taxes Acts.

The modern preference for direct debit made the question about the cost of a TV licence more of a challenge than it might be, but fortunately one team member, eschewing such new fangled ideas, had recently put quill to cheque for the full amount in the time honoured fashion.

The fiercest debate of the evening was about the number of “chance” squares on a monopoly board, settled only after a copy of the entire board was drawn out on a piece of paper.

As ever, the evening was very well organised and thoroughly enjoyable, and offered the opportunity to meet professionals from the private sector, always dreading of course the tap on the shoulder and “now, about clause…” | arcnews

New president; old Treasurer Graham Black was elected unopposed last month as President of ARC, completing a hat trick of recent electoral victories that began with his return to Committee and continued with his election to the FDA Executive Committee as one of ARC’s representatives.

Graham has had a distinguished career in HMRC and the former Inland Revenue, and has been a long-standing activist in ARC and its predecessor unions, including service on Committee and attendance at AGMs when not on Committee.

Graham introduced himself to readers on his election to Committee, and will submit himself to the arcnews interview in a future issue.

The other unopposed election was for the post of Treasurer. Martin Fletcher, the longest-serving member of Committee, was returned to a post he has occupied to general approbation for nearly 20 years. Martin in also one of the ARC representatives on the FDA Executive Committee, and has previously served as the President of the FDA, as well as taking a continuing active role on the FDA Equality Committee. Martin writes on the issue of religion and belief in this issue on page 22.

There were contests for the posts of Deputy President and for the six officer posts, and ballot papers were arriving with members as we went to press. The results will be announced on arc-forum and in the next issue of arcnews. These elections will be followed by elections for the remaining 15 places on ARC Committee. Watch for announcements on arc-forum, in arcnews and via Centre emails and circulars.

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

11

SUSTAINABILITY

A sustainable Mark Lovesey welcomes the department’s decision to sign up to an environmental intiative.

12

Spring is approaching and this is the time of year to take stock of New Year’s resolutions, or what’s left of them. I’m doing pretty well on avoiding extreme sports and even better on my plan to introduce a daily tipple. This year the department made a New Year’s resolution too; they signed up to something called 10:10. It’s a global initiative supported, but not started, by the government. Individuals, companies, businesses, government departments, charities, organisations of any shape, size or description can pledge to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. The idea is to bring together every part of society under this single, common goal.

I won’t start to debate the issue of why cutting emissions is important: we all have our own opinions. For some, cutting carbon emissions and avoiding the impact of climate change is a bit like putting on a life jacket on a plane falling out of the sky from 30,000 feet. Others don’t even think its happening or think it’s the natural cycle of the planet. I tend to side with the scientists in this (well, most scientists outside of Norwich anyway).

It’s happening, it is, at least in part, caused by humans and we can reverse the unpleasant effects if we take action now.

The appeal of 10:10 for me is that it’s putting the responsibility for cutting emissions into the hands of everyone. What this means is that we, as individuals, are responsible for helping HMRC to stick to its New Year resolution. We can provide support in a number of ways. The easiest is to engage with what the department already does and there’s plenty of it going on – you may already have met your building Green Reps. But we can also think more sustainably about what we do – do you have to travel and, if you do, is there a low-carbon form of transport?

As a trade union we could be cynical about the move to sign up to 10:10. It’s

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

SUSTAINABILITY

le resolution? obviously not a binding commitment and if we don’t meet it no one will lose their job.

But I do believe that signing up to 10:10 is part of a package that signals the wider department (and not just a few people in the CR Team) is beginning to take environmental issues seriously. We’ve seen a lot of other developments over the past few months: the big switch-off campaign; the roll out of Wake On LAN (the technology that powers down computer base units over night); the not-completely-ruling-out of a cycle to work scheme and the appointment of Simon Bowles (our Chief Finance Officer) as the department’s environment champion.

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

I think it’s no coincidence that the environment champion is also the department’s money man – we all know the department isn’t looking too hot on the finance front at the moment. There are some real savings to be had if our thinking about how we do things is a little bit greener and in reality I think HMRC might do OK on it’s New Years resolution. But where do we go from 2011? Its all well and good turning down the heating or encouraging people to use the phone instead of driving but how do we ensure that our emissions keep falling?

The real answers will be found in investment in buildings, infrastructure and sustainable technologies. You may have seen somewhere around your building a DEC (Display Energy Certificate). It will tell you what your building’s energy rating is. The vast majority of our buildings aren’t too good and some of them are just appalling. We need to invest heavily if we are truly to become as sustainable as we both want and need to be. But that is all easier said than done in a world of dwindling single-year budgets. I guess we’ll just stick with our resolution for a start. | arcnews Find out more at www.1010uk.org.

13

AGM MOTIONS REPORT

You said,

O

What happens to the motions passed at the AGM? Terry Cook reports on how he and Committee have implemented members’ instructions.

n page 5 we publish first details of the 2010 AGM. Over the next couple of months Centres will be arranging meetings, devising motions and selecting delegates in the run up to what is undoubtedly the highlight of the ARC calendar. Last year we had an encouraging number of first time attendees and speakers and I hope that some newer members will again be able to get a taste of things this year.

Committee pays great attention to the debates in London in May and one of the most important jobs we have is to do our best to take forward the instructions the representatives give us there. So how have we done with the 2009 crop?

The AGM was fully reported in the June 2009 arcnews and there is a complete transcript on arc-forum. I’m using the headings that the motions were grouped under in the agenda.

14

Domestic matters(1-10)

We held a successful political fund ballot. We have continued work on a new set of rules, and arc-forum has enabled members to feed into this process.

The post of Past President has duly disappeared from the list of national Officers.

Pay (11-36)

I will be writing a longer piece about pay and related matters for the next edition of arcnews.

Electronic ballots (37)

I’m pleased to say that Steve McFarlane will be writing about this subject in the next arcnews.

Emergency motion A

Just to remind you, this was the text for this: That this AGM is dismayed that HMRC’s financial settlement for 2009/10 is leading to business units having to make further cuts to stay within their allocated budgets.

ARC is committed to protecting

those whose jobs may go as a result of cutbacks and so we will continue to seek ways to avoid redundancy and compulsory moves. But we are also concerned about the effects the mantra ‘more with less’ will have on staff who remain, particularly in terms of increased workload pressures, potentially compromising their ability to do a professional job and increasing the likelihood of work-induced stress.

This AGM reaffirms that maintaining decent terms and conditions, safeguarding the health and safety of members and improving equality of opportunity are priorities for ARC. This AGM therefore instructs Committee to seek to ensure that budgetary plans which result in job losses are not implemented without HMRC properly satisfying its legal obligations to assess fully the possible risks to health and safety and the potential impacts on equality.

We have consultation with businesses as a standing item on the agenda for Committee meetings, largely to monitor

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

AGM MOTIONS REPORT

we did whether spending restrictions are having the effects that we anticipated.

As I said in my last front page piece, businesses seem to have managed to struggle through in 2009/10. But we are seeing signs of real problems in the planning for 2010/11, with pressure on the numbers of Grade 6/7/SCS posts in places like KAI, CAR, CT&VAT and Solicitors. When she appeared before the Treasury Sub-Committee in June last year Lesley Strathie disagreed with my observation that “there was no more dead wood to cut” (and kindly gave me a name-check in doing so): I would not use the term “dead wood” although I know Terry Cook did; I simply say that there is always another way to do things and if you are working efficiently and you simply take out the numbers we have taken out or more and carry on doing everything the same old way, then it would be terribly detrimental. The challenge is to keep moving on the journey and learning from others who have done things, exploiting technologies.

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

We will seek as much involvement as possible in the planning process. We will press businesses to accept that in our grades – where there are no easy gains to be made from new technology or more effective management strategies – it is challenging enough to do the same with less, let alone more. We’ve seen welcome signs in a couple of businesses at least that senior leaders are prepared to go to Excom and say that if you’re asking me to manage with this amount of resource then this is what I can do and this is what I can’t do, not keep on signing blank cheques. In connection with motion 52, we’ve pressed Excom to take a similar message back to those who hold our purse strings.

Careers and Training (38-40)

Motion 38 noted the reduction in places available on the Tax Professional Development Programme 2009 and told us among other things to “seek assurances from HMRC that it intends to increase the number of TPDP recruits in subsequent years”. In discussions

with Dave Hartnett and with the Tax Professionalism team we played our part in the Department’s decision to continue with a graduate recruitment programme in 2009, and we ensured that proper provision was made in the planning for attrition rates. But once again, 2010 looks as though it’s going to be tougher still to persuade HMRC to invest money in the future. Because of this, and in line with motion 39, we have stressed the need for HMRC to look at the potential it already has in its own ranks.

I have referred to the difficulties we’ve had in pursuing motion 40, on grading imbalances, elsewhere in this edition. In writing to Dorothy Brown, acting Head of People Function, about the Capability Re-review I said that this remained a key issue for us: I’ve been told that workforce planning would supply the answers.

Organisational design now seems to be the panacea. But we badly need a plan and progress now.

Iain Campbell has been working with both Local Compliance and E&C to 15

AGM MOTIONS REPORT address the issues of resource planning and career development. Implicit in this is the area of management spans, which we mentioned in our response on the role of the manager in LC. It looks as if there is not a lot of actual progress, but Mike Eland is publicly committed in his Business Plan for 09/10 to: produce an E&C resourcing plan under the “Developing People for 2013” project. To support the resourcing plan we will deliver training and development of people, as well as an E&C wide approach to talent management for grades 6 and 7 (extending to grades AA-SO in due course).

We have responded to Motion 44 by getting active for the first time in environmental issues. Thanks to TUS persistence the Department has put some serious effort into the evaluation of a cycle to work scheme, as opposed to the back of an envelope case that was examined a couple of years ago, and we await a decision.

Motion 45 was about a “culture of repression” in HMRC. I brought up this issue when TUS met the head of the Capability Review team Lin Homer, the head of UKBA, and I think it feeds into the wider concern about staff engagement in HMRC that I addressed in the recent letter to Dorothy:

Health & Safety (41-42)

I was also interested to see the idea of empowerment finding its way back on to the agenda. Our members regularly tell us that they increasingly feel constrained and over-controlled, their status and roles undermined, with not enough encouragement to exercise their professional judgment and knowledge. Independent thought seems to be frowned upon. And people at a local level are entangled in a confused bureaucracy where accountabilities are still muddled, no one has the authority to take decisions on behalf of the organisation as a whole, and as a result time and money are wasted. Unless HMRC can move the pendulum back towards a more enabled workforce in ARC grades then I cannot see how engagement is going to improve.

We expect to talk about leave entitlements sooner rather than later and we will ensure, in line with Motion 46, that HMRC is aware of the issue of including years of service in the armed forces. I was pleased when the Department agreed to apply the principle in the guidance on loyalty letters and retirement gifts: `` Total service is defined as service within HMRC and/or the wider Civil Service and service within the Armed Forces.

I think the progress we have made on making ARC a force in Departmental Health & Safety is something that we can be proud of. In the next arcnews there will be a report on the first FDA Health & Safety training course, which ARC members were largely responsible for bringing into being, and on which ARC members were by far the biggest single group. This will help us to continue building a group of accredited people who can effectively represent members in their workplace.

The 2 AGM motions focused on stress and this was the theme of a training course Committee ran for Health & Safety reps and personal caseworkers in Leake Street before Christmas. And I think we are ensuring that this important subject doesn’t slip off the Departmental radar – only today my manager passed on to me a stress prevention helpcard (in my case, a bit late for that).

Conditions (43-48)

I’m pleased that we have been able to deliver something on Motion 43. In the past T&S rates were set, forgotten about for years, and consequently ravaged by inflation. Not only have we obtained a full increase in virtually all the payments for inflation this year, but we have also negotiated an automatic annual adjustment to take that into account.

We have also managed to increase the circumstances where payments are grossed up for tax.

16

Accommodation continues to be a challenge for us. Queen’s Dock in Liverpool is the latest potential

disaster story (see Iain’s piece page 26) and we have tried to broker constructive discussions between Estates and Support Services, the local implementation team, the businesses and members through the Centre. The need for flexibility is a continuing theme in our engagement with ESS. We have not made any progress with motion 48 and I need to do something.

But it was encouraging that one of the themes in the People Function transformation was an appreciation that the service offered to staff in terms of payroll and, particularly, HR processes was often simply not good enough – we are constantly urged to put the customer at the heart of everything we do, but that isn’t always the experience HMRC staff have when interacting with our service centre. The problem, of course, is that any solution will have to work within the “more with less” mantra.

Workforce Change (4950)

Again, I’ve covered these in what I’ve said elsewhere about Workforce Change.

Resources (51-55)

One of the 2 themes in the letter to Lesley Strathie following Cathy Wilcher’s departure was the issue of external recruitment. We have not yet been able to get the information Motion 51 talked about but we have made some progress in discussions about higher rates of starting pay within the SCS. As regards Motion 52, I’ve described in the past how I have pressed Lesley, Dave Hartnett and others to fight the Department’s corner in discussions with the Treasury. It’s a point I got across when we met the new Chief Finance Officer Simon Bowles for the first time just before Christmas. He assured me that it is one of his aims in improving HMRC’s financial management capability that we should be able to negotiate better with the Treasury.

We continue to have very good working relationships both with the Tax Professionalism team and with Ross McBennett in Local Compliance and have taken forward Motions 53 and 54.

We have continually stressed the

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

AGM MOTIONS REPORT

need to ensure that Local Compliance is properly resourced to carry out the work it has pledged to deliver and, if not, to drop the less important aspects.

LC has accepted this view and we have not heard of any issues being created through resourcing Customer Relationship Managers at the expense of other work.

Consultation (56)

We have not been involved in any discussions about a new consultation agreement. But, as I said in the last arcnews, I believe consultation in HMRC has been another success story for us.

I will be extremely disappointed if the industrial relations strategy that is put to us does not consolidate this progress.

Communications (57-58)

I met with people involved in the guidance project and need to follow that up. I took the message of motion 58 to senior people in Local Compliance and was pleased when they agreed that it chimed in with what they had been hearing as they went round the country, and did reflect a genuine mood of

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

frustration. I’ve tried several times to get across to senior leaders that sense of being strangled by red tape that Annabel McLeod and Graham Flew so graphically played out at the AGM (you had to be there), and the feeling that, at a time when we are expected to be more efficient than ever, so much is being wasted in needless duplication and overelaborate processes.

Management of staff (59-62)

I have continually reminded senior managers of Dave Hartnett’s words at the 2008 AGM which many of us took to signal a return to a bigger role for the centre in career planning etc. I’ve talked elsewhere about making sure that the new HR professionals in People Function are fully aware of the background to this and why members feel so strongly about it.

Of course I have to declare a personal interest in motion 60 about secondees!

But it’s long puzzled me why, when people have the courage to take up challenging opportunities outside HMRC, their reward for that is often to be

forgotten. And when they return they can find that no-one is interested in the experience and skills they have acquired.

I’m not sure we achieved a great change in attitudes, though when I asked a colleague on secondment he did say that things had got a little better. I will try my best to interest the Department’s new talent team in this issue.

ARC’s response to peer management caused a bit of concern during the AGM. We have continued to express opposition to this concept in the situations specified. I understand that Local Compliance has decided not to pursue the idea, and that in the SME customer grouping the use of Grade 7s as consultants has not been accompanied by proposals for peer management at G7.

Sadly, I can’t report enormous progress in everything that Committee was asked to do. But I hope members will have read enough in this to convince them that it is worthwhile putting forward motions at the AGM. I look forward to seeing old friends and new in May. | arcnews

17

CAPABILITY REVIEW

Must do better Iain ‘Capability’ Campbell reviews the re-review of the Capability Review

T

hose of us who become parents soon come across the strange ritual known as the parents’ evening. From gentle introductions in primary school, with praise for well-drawn flowers and well-formed letters, these gradually progress into full-blown in-year and end-of-year reviews.

There are targets for grades (‘purely for illustration’ of course), areas of improvement and by 15 or 16 they enter the heady territory of career choices, ‘further’ and, almost axiomatically, ‘higher’ education. With four children I have honestly lost count of the number of evenings I have attended across a range of schools in England and Scotland. I must have read dozens of pupil and annual school reports on what is going well and where improvement is needed.

Having been a governor (but in the days when you had to argue strongly for your case for extra leave) I also know what all this looks like from the school’s point of view. What to say to parents in each report? How to even communicate with them? Do we use a ‘sign here and return’ slip to prove their son/daughter has actually handed over the report? Do we explain that cohort X is particularly bad/good compared to the year above/ below them? How to motivate those boys drinking

18

(usually metaphorically) in the last chance saloon? Go for the border line C/D candidates?

The trouble with inspections

So I think I was fairly sure I knew where we stood until the day we suffered our first Ofsted.

(Readers outside England can breathe a sigh of relief they are not so troubled.) We felt that we would be punished for sins of omission, like the act of worship, or too few after-hours clubs for a school most of whose children had to be bussed home 10 to 20 miles. To cut a long story short we were awarded ‘good’ but the ICT provision was marked at the bottom.

At the Governors’ meeting with the lead Inspector he said our ICT had come from the Ark and so we needed to spend money, a lot of money. Under questioning he agreed that we were in a county whose education budget has just been slashed by central government. He fully agreed that our rural location gave us additional costs not found in urban areas but no additional funds. And he also accepted there was likely to be a deficit budget because of a short term gap in numbers in a school with stable (i.e. expensive) staffing. When asked about how to pay for his better ICT he smugly told us ‘this was not his responsibility but down to good leadership in the school’.

The Capability Review

Since then I confess I have taken a jaundiced approach to reviews from on high that usually seem to start with preconceptions on what should be the case and woe betide anything that does not fit. (As the Japanese say, the tack that stands

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

CAPABILITY REVIEW

International Development

2.7

Education and Skills (DfES)

2.4

Work and Pensions (DWP)

2.3

Constitutional Affairs

2.3

Ministry of Defence

2.3

Transport

2.3

HM Treasury

2.3

Trade and Industry

2.2

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

2.2

Crown Prosecution Service

2.2

Cabinet Office

2.0

Communities and Local Government (DCLG)

1.9

Culture, Media and Sport

1.9

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

1.9

HM Revenue & Customs

1.8

Health

1.7

Home Office

1.4

Average ratings are calculated through assigning, to each assessed element of capability, a numerical value of 4 for a ‘strong’, 3 for ‘well placed’, 2 for ‘development area’, 1 for ‘urgent development area’ and 0 for ‘serious concerns’ and then calculating the mean value.

out gets hammered down.) But, as with being a parent and a Governor, I have tried to see it from both sides and must confess that even Ofsted had some good points, such as showing some strengths that staff had underestimated.

In 2005, a series of Capability Reviews began across the whole of the Civil Service. They were really a kind of super Ofsted, with the same overall approach and way of working.

In the words of the NAO they assess systematically the organisational capabilities of individual departments and publish results that can be compared across departments.

These are divided into Leadership, Strategy and Delivery. The objective is to create a step change in central government’s capability to meet current and future delivery challenges.

In response to weaknesses identified in its review, each department must draw up and follow an action plan to ensure that it can meet the

challenges to its current and future delivery.

ARC gave evidence in 2007 and the Capability Review for HMRC was fairly damning. The table, left, (from a January 2009 NAO Report) gives the average assessment ratings for all the capability elements in the first-round reviews, completed between July 2006 and December 2007.

Taken with the Poynter Report (into those missing discs, which still remain lost) the Review identified a number of areas needing urgent development. Chief of these was the need to simplify lines of accountability and introduce a more coherent top management structure – Lines of Business.

This was not that unusual.

The NAO Report summarises the key areas of change in response to Capability Reviews across Departments, shown in the table below.

Department

New board or governance arrangements

New or additional training of staff

Movement of key senior civil service staff

Changes to programme/ project planning and management

Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Cabinet Office

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Children, Schools and Families

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Communities and Local Government

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Crown Prosecution Service

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Culture, Media and Sport

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Defence

Yes

Yes

No

n/a

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Health

Yes

Yes

Yes

n/a

Home Office

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

International Development

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Ministry of Justice

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Revenue & Customs

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Transport

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Treasury

Planned

No

No

n/a

Work and Pensions

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Source: National Audit Office census and interviews of change directors

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

19

CAPABILITY REVIEW

Inspecting the Inspection But, as with Ofsted, the Review process has not been without its own critics.

After all, every inspection process has itself to be inspected. Although the intentions were praised and a lot of good features identified (the equivalent of a ‘good school’?) problems have been spotted. Last January the NAO said that the Capability Reviews must do better!

It said there was a lack of metrics, that Departments cannot yet show any clear impact on outcomes as a result of their responses to Capability Reviews.

It pointed out that the Reviews did not even consider departments’ reported performance – “It is unusual to examine an organisation’s leadership, strategy and processes in isolation from its operational results.”

Last September the Public Accounts Committee came out with similar criticisms. They pointed out that the link between Capability Review scores and delivery performance is ‘not clear because assessments are based largely on qualitative and subjective 20

evidence.’ They noted the Reviews failed to give sufficient attention to middle management, front-line staff and departments’ delivery partners and agencies. And unlike local government assessment, which includes political leadership, Reviews did not consider how well Ministers and senior management work together to achieve desired outcomes.

The Re-review Unlike Ofsted the Review came with a guaranteed re-review two years later.

Once again ARC presented them with evidence, focusing on delivery and what members saw as the frustrating tendency to micromanage their work. We also drew attention to the truly appalling staff survey results, showing the huge lack of credibility that senior managers and leaders had with staff.

So, bearing in mind the perceived flaws in the inspection process, how did HMRC fare this time? The table below shows the welcome upward shift in assessment from 1.8 to 2.3,

especially in leadership. But across the rest of Whitehall after their Re-reviews there were only 3 ‘urgent development’ assessments. So it is surely worrying that HMRC provides a fourth, on ‘ignite passion, pace and drive’. Furthermore, other Departments got better as well, some dramatically so, such as the Home Office from 1.4 to 2.5, DfES 2.4 to 2.9, DWP from 2.3 to 2.9, Cabinet Office from 2.0 in to 2.4, and DCLG 1.9 to 2.3. Clearly the bar has been raised and the verdict is, again, must do better.

Perhaps this shows some of the pitfalls of relative appraisal?

The HMRC Response But what is perhaps more worrying than the Re-review is the official HMRC response. At first glance it almost suggests that everything in the garden is lovely. HMRC has made huge progress, has set in motion many things, and will be able to ignite pace and passion. Our main concern is that the picture painted in HMRC’s response is far rosier than many members would recognise. They

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

CAPABILITY REVIEW Area

Review date

Strong (4)

Well Placed (3)

Development Area (2)

Urgent Development Serious Area (1) Concerns (0)

Leadership L1 Set direction L2 Ignite passion, pace and drive L3 Take responsibility for leading delivery and change L4 Build capability

2007 2009 2007 2009 2007 2009 2007 2009

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Strategy S1 Focus on outcomes S2 Base choices on evidence S3 Build common purpose

2007

■

2009 2007 2009 2007 2009

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Delivery D1 Plan, resource and prioritise D2 Develop clear roles, responsibilities and delivery model(s) D3 Manage performance

2007 2009 2007 2009 2007 2009

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Well Placed

Well placed to address any gaps in capability for future delivery through practical actions that are planned or already under way. Is making improvements in capability and is expected to improve further in the medium term.

Development Area

The department should be capable of addressing some significant weaknesses in capability for future delivery by taking remedial action. More action is required to close those gaps and deliver improvement over the medium term.

Urgent Development Area Significant weaknesses in capability for future and needs significant additional action and support to secure effective

might endorse Sir Gus’s “good progress” on page 2 but certainly not the “huge steps” on page 12 or the “huge progress” on page 14! And there is still a lot of “we will” rather than “we have”, with general statements about HMRC being “well-placed” to meet the future.

The Review singles out some key areas which we do not feel HMRC addresses adequately, such as “The senior leadership team does not have a wide enough base of expertise and credibility to manage senior, strategic relationships with key customers and stakeholders.” Or that the Board and Excom “need to ensure that they find more space to lead.”

Clearly the results of the next staff survey will tell us a lot about how well HMRC is doing on building capability and engaging staff. But we have real reservations about the way that the People Function transformation is being implemented. ARC agrees with the Review that “HMRC does not yet have a people strategy to deliver the right skills for the whole organisation”. We

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

are thus not sure how much weight can currently be given to the HMRC claim that our “people strategy will enable us to sharpen our people policies and empower our managers to manage effectively.”

The role of the SCS ARC has also raised with the Department a red warning signal over the confident prediction for the role of the SCS in 2010/11. Our SCS members are now telling us that morale is sinking rapidly, if not yet united with Davy Jones locker.

This is partly due to the discredited central pay and relative appraisal system, partly due to the enormous demands that are being made on them.

We hear of a widespread sense of disconnection and disenchantment. The review quotes the figures of only 61% of the SCS proud to say they work for HMRC, and 17% feeling that change is well-managed here, which confirms this trend. For the first time I have heard people questioning the point of trying to get to the SCS. In fact, I have even

heard about SCS members wishing they could return to Grade 6!

Engagement with TUs The really difficult issues around staff engagement require more fundamental changes of approach, and ARC wants to work with the department to achieve these. Such changes must include trusting our managers and staff more, increasing the emphasis on professionalism across all HMRC professions, and having a sensible reward and recognition strategy across all grades. ARC has a real desire to see these improvements in place, and wants to have a constructive role in discussing how they can be achieved. If we are involved and included on this basis the chances of improved staff engagement will be greatly enhanced. | arcnews

21

FAITH ISSUES

A question o

I

Martin Fletcher questions whether perceived conflicts between some equality strands are always approached in the most effective way.

22

n a recent edition of arcnews I wrote an article on London Centre’s motion to last year’s FDA Annual Delegate Conference on the equality legislation on religion and belief. The motion instructed the FDA Executive Committee (EC) to do a number of things, including reporting to members by 31 December on actions taken, and making positive recommendations for the future. At the time I felt that the EC did not have a lot of enthusiasm for the motion and this has proved to be the case, as little (if anything) has happened since then.

One of the reservations about being proactive on religion and belief is the concern about the perceived (and, sadly, sometimes actual) difficult interaction with the policies in other areas of equality. The most high profile area of potential conflict is in the area of sexual orientation. But the fact that it is all very difficult is not a good reason for doing nothing.

Currently the discussions that do take place on such potential conflict are not balanced or properly informed. This is reflected by the way the TUC has engaged in the recent discussion on the Equality Bill. The Cutting Edge consortium (a lobby group which includes the TUC) published a briefing paper on proposed amendments to the Equality Bill related to religious exemptions.

The Cutting Edge papers says that there are “many members in good standing of the major religious bodies who do not share the views on the Equality Bill which have been expressed in

public and to Parliament by some of the leaders of those organisations.”

I am sure that this is the case; but this does not change the fact that the views expressed are minority views within the religious groups, and there are even more “members in good standing of the major religious bodies”, including the leadership of those bodies, who do not agree with the Cutting Edge position. The TUC is currently not reflecting the views of its members who fall into that category.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the arguments on both sides of the debate.

Rather I want to ensure that, where there are areas of interest to members in the area of religion and belief, there is a proper forum for listening to all views before setting policies.

The issue was also highlighted through a recent HMRC Newsboard item. HMRC was named among the UK’s top 100 gay-friendly employers, moving from 50th place last year to 45th this year. That is a good news story, and HMRC is rightly pleased with this public recognition.

In publicising this achievement HMRC published a copy of the journal Equal Opportunities Review. This magazine was showcasing organisations which lead the way in attracting and managing LGB staff, and several of the Department’s initiatives were highlighted.

In identifying best practice, the article said: “Almost a quarter of respondents (23%) have experienced problems as a result of conflicts on the grounds of religion and sexual orientation.

For example, London Borough of Islington says: ‘We have had two cases of registrars refusing to undertake civil partnerships. We defended an employment tribunal when one employee accused us of discrimination on the grounds of religion/belief. We have subsequently amended job descriptions of registrars to ensure that

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

FAITH ISSUES

of faith the requirement to undertake civil partnerships as part of the job is explicit.

The case was reported in national media.

Standing up so publicly for LGB rights has made our position clear to staff and residents and sent a clear signal that we are serious about One Islington and Dignity for All. Overall, our commitment has been well received by staff and residents.’”

This paragraph clearly shows that there is a widespread problem to be addressed. But the way this exemplar employer resolved the conflict was to dismiss the member of staff holding the religious beliefs, and then fight the case all the way to the House of Lords.

This is, in my view, not a way to resolve conflict that should be supported by the TUC. While the employer did not act illegally, it was clear to the Lords that neither was the employee treated fairly.

The Lords pointed out that other registration authorities had found a more conciliatory solution to the problem, which did not involve sacking anyone. It is a reflection of the unbalanced approach to the discussion that this employer should be highlighted as an exemplar, and that this method of resolving conflict should be promoted as best practice.

The area remains a difficult one, with no easy answers. But we will only move forward by engaging with our members and by providing a way for all opinions to be heard.

I would ask Centres to consider putting another motion to this year’s ADC to raise last year’s motion higher up the EC agenda. | arcnews

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

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RACE MONITORING

A

nother day another report read.

Although, in fact, this one – the HMRC Race Equality Duty Monitoring Report 2008-9 – was incredibly useful. There are sceptics who feel that monitoring, reporting and regulation are all just bureaucracy, that at best they achieve nothing and at worst obscure the picture and divert resources. Well, in my view, information is power, and the RED (as its commonly referred to) is a depressingly good read.

Why does the department produce it? Article 5 of the Race Relations Act 1976 requires the department to keep and monitor statistics, analysed by racial group. And the race equality duty, developed as a result of the Macpherson Enquiry following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, requires the department, among other things, to monitor employment practices. So it has to review and analyse all aspects of recruitment, resignations, conduct and discipline, promotion and appraisal, looking at each of these and assessing whether they promote equality, or whether any element of disadvantage is created and if it is identify a way of stopping that.

First to give credit where credit is due – Judy Greevy and her team in Corporate Responsibility, Diversity and Wellbeing are doing a good job, in just a couple of years they have developed and started to implement a strategy that is starting to show some positive results. However, they were starting from a low base and whilst they are on the side of the angels – they are a few amongst many – so there’s still a ways to go.

You should find the full report on the internet and intranet or I can send you a copy if proves elusive.

So what have I found out?

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In the RED The department has to report on how well it carries out its race equality duty. Sarah Guerra digests and decodes it here for you.

Declarations 68.9% of staff have made an ethnicity declaration – and this figure isn’t rising particularly fast. The department’s target is 89%.

Representation 92.6% of HMRC staff (that have declared) are white, 7.5% BME (4.8%: Asian; 1.4%: black; 0.4%: Chinese; 0.9%: mixed).

For 2008/2009 the trend, as in previous years, is for higher grades to have a lower proportion of BAME staff.

BAME staff account for more leavers at the lower grades and white staff account for more leavers at the higher grades. The proportion of BAME staff entering at each grade is higher than the current proportion of staff in HMRC. Of particular note is the figure for the SCS, where 16.7% of new entrants are BAME. I’m trying to find out what that is in terms of real people.

Recruitment Here there are various analyses and it would appear there are some issues. `` twice as large a proportion of BAME staff get rejected after part of the online process; `` for specialist posts 25.3% of applicants were BAME yet only 4.7% of successful applicants were BAME;  `` 36% of graduate applicants were BAME – yet only account for 7.5% of successful applicants; f

`` rom the data available it seems that there were no BAME cabinet office faststreamers recruited in 2008/9.

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

RACE MONITORING BAME 6%

BAME 25%

PERMANENT PROMOTIONS

WHITE 75%

Applicants for specialist posts BAME 13%

WHITE 94%

WHITE 87%

NEW ENTRANTS TO HMRC

Promotion Here, there is a positive trend in that the proportion of BAME promotions is getting closer to the overall proportions.

Grade 7 gateway This is a crucial pathway and feeder grade to progression.

Evidently there are still some problems. The overall numbers are not too bad: 6.3% of applicants were BAME as against 6.2% of successful applicants, but when you look at the detail and examine the lines of business benefits and credits, business tax and personal tax all had zero BAME candidates.

The report says part of this may be because these are small directorates or for reasons unknown they have low numbers of BAME SOs, which means there isn’t a pool of candidates to choose from. However, later the report clearly finds that actually the distribution of BAMEs through HMRC and lines of business is fairly even or proportionate. ARC has been aware of these problems for a while and continues to question and challenge.

It would be really useful to hear from people in those lines of business to see whether we can identify any particular problems, or come up with any particular solutions.

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

The report also spends quite a long time talking about age and length of service. From what I can gather, BAME staff are marginally younger on average, nearly 42 compared to just over 44, and have spent less time in HMRC: 3.5 years compared to nearly 17. These differences may account for some of the disparities in promotion and progression. But it seems to me that that is all a bit of a red herring. The differences are not big enough – and surely experience after a certain number of years is all much of a muchness? I don’t know – what do others think?

That was a very brief canter through some of the findings.

As I said, you can study the whole report at your leisure. One of the reasons for writing this article is to provide info to members, but also there is often a lot of discussion about why equality work is needed – that everyone is disadvantaged these days. RED demonstrates that BAME’s still seem to come out worse that the majority white population Attached to the report is an action plan, but it is rather vague. Maybe by the time you read this I will have met CR&D and pinned a few more specifics down. They tell me they are working on a new Race plan following the ARC BAME event and the production of the RED. | arcnews 25

ENFORCEMENT & COMPLIANCE

ESS again, and As anyone knows HMRC has to save a lot of money (although not quite at the recent level of Icelanders at £10,000 each to repay dubious banking practices). One of the main ways to do this is via Estates Consolidation and by focussing on core activities (i.e. sticking to its knitting).

Both these aspects have been under severe criticism from members in E&C for several years but recent developments have thrown up two particularly blatant problems.

Providing less with more?

Frustrated? So is Iain Campbell.

The first has been the decision effectively to withdraw what some people might regard as core common services, like meeting visitors at receptions or taking delivery of building and stationery supplies.

Members can remember the days (not that far removed) when such services were provided as a matter of course and buildings tended to run with reasonable smoothness and efficiency. Members can also remember that the money needed to run these services was handed over to ESS, along with the associated responsibilities. It is hardly surprising that they now reasonably object to ESS ditching the responsibilities, saying they are now down to businesses to operate, but at the same time refusing to hand back the resources they were given.

This is not robbing Peter to pay Paul, this seems very much like robbing both Peter and Paul, and then handing back some depleted wallets to pay for the aftermath. HMRC does not have the equivalent of Victim Support.

Providing more with less?

Another example has been, for want of a better word, the current fiasco over the building at Queen’s Dock (pictured above) in Liverpool.

Without wanting to go into all the sorry details on what has happened, last year E&C staff were transferred into Queen’s Dock ‘temporary accommodation’. Now there can be learned debates about the meaning of ‘temporary’. I can recall a set of temporary traffic lights that endured so long that a kind motorist set up an accompanying Happy Birthday sign. Some of us may have to consider what is a temporary place of work that gives rise to tax deductible travelling claims. But I suspect that

26

‘temporary’ suggests a foreseeable end in the not too distant future.

Not so for Queen’s Dock. HMRC seems to be trying to put too many people into too small a space and with unacceptable standards of accommodation. The temporary period has been extended and extended, but quality and suitability have not improved, and may even have worsened.

There seems to be confusion about who is responsible, the extent of any additional work, its cost and who will pay for it. Things have become so bad that Liverpool Centre held a recent extraordinary meeting to criticise what has been taking place.

‘Temporary’ conditions have meant things like inadequate or broken furniture, insufficient secure storage, teams not co-located and with insufficient

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

ENFORCEMENT & COMPLIANCE

d again

space, some work areas unsuited to the job that the staff in them perform, and no public access to the building or visitor parking available. Having endured for over 8 months a review is proposed for spring 2010 but there is no guarantee that anything will change before autumn 2010.

Resolving problems ARC has, as you will expect, been making strong representations on these sorts of issues.

It seems as if we are not the only ones. A recent ABCD Report from Large and Complex in Local Compliance had three concerns. One was on Liverpool – “It may be ‘impossible’ to co-locate teams in the short term and may take two years to resolve. Decisions are impacting on clear

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

‘co-locate’ business benefits and staff morale.”

Another was on the reduction in ESS services -“withdrawal is leading to L&C staff, especially as SRM’s, losing significant time to former ESS work that would previously have been spent on business operations”.

We hope that the recent appointment of Ed McKeegan to the new post of SCS2 director of ESS will lead to action to remedy these problems.

But there are likely to be problems elsewhere, for instance the recent restacking of Parliament Street, and problems in Somerset House and Waterview Park (Longbenton). So please tell Terry or myself of any other examples you have where ESS and your needs to do your work seem to be clashing. | arcnews

27

TERRY ON...

More change in People Function Terry Cook guides you through the latest developments Two new acronyms entered the already bulging HMRC lexicon in December – HAG and BAG. HR Advisory Group (HAG) is described as a group of HR Professionals drawn from the People Function Strategic Leadership team, HR Directors and HR and/or Learning Business Partners and chaired by Dorothy Brown, HMRC’s HR Operations Director. It will take decisions based on advice from the Business Advisory Group. It will be the route for primary governance and prioritisation of HR policy change.

Business Advisory Group (BAG) is a group of senior managers drawn from across the business who will bring with them professional expertise that will influence the decisions made by the HR Advisory Group, quickly and effectively achieving co-ordinated solutions to the development of new, and the review of existing, HR policies and processes. It will also be responsible for and take a lead role in achieving business buy-in to HR policies and processes.

BAG members will be Heads of Operations or representatives of Chiefs who are at Grade 7 or above and authorised/mandated to speak and take decisions on behalf of their business areas.

From time to time, members will be asked to nominate additional representatives (eg front line managers) who can join teleconferences and give a perspective from an operational or functional viewpoint. They will provide business sign off and confirm business readiness for implementation.

In addition a Policy Forum is to be set up, to enable HR & L BPs and policy specialists to share information about policy issues and the policy development timetable.

One of Cathy Wilcher’s commitments to TUS when she joined HMRC was that she would

28

explore with us new ways of developing HR policies, giving us more involvement in the process, and that has been reiterated since Cathy’s departure. So we wait to see how it is proposed that we interact with HAG, BAG and the Policy Forum.

And speaking of Cathy, her replacement as HMRC Chief People Officer has now been appointed. Mike Falvey joins us from Communities and Local Government, where he has held the post of Director General, HR and Business Change since September 2007. Their website gives this pen picture: Mike has had a varied and interesting career, having run his own HR consultancy before joining the Department. Prior to this, he worked for SIRVA Inc in various roles, including as managing director for relocations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and vice president with responsibility for their HR operation in 40 countries.

Other jobs have included managing:

`` organisational development for Wickes plc `` employee development for B&Q `` HR manager for Fiat.

Mike has also coached and scouted for both professional football clubs and the Football Association. He is married and has three children.

We have been told that TUS will be involved in his induction process and we look forward to meeting him. | TC

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

BAND T

“A Guid Ne’er year tae ane an a’, An’ mony may ye see.”

Ann Clark looks forward with resolution A New Year, a new decade, a time of big changes for the country, the civil service and the FDA – see the New Year message sent by email from the FDA lay officers.

So is this a time for me to contemplate something I never bother wasting time on devising? What, oh what I hear you ask – New Year resolutions! No, I never bother but I have been trying to sort out my future plans re career (Ha! HA!), work life balance (much bigger laff) and whether to stand for ARC committee in the up and coming elections.

To help me in this, I must give a “shout-out” for the excellent Opus2 careers coaching. This is available via the FDA. I have been a coach, adviser and mentor for sometime but I am not able to take the advice I have given to others in the past. It was very gratifying to find out that this is not unusual. So thanks, to the ever-patient and helpful, Nick for his continued telephonic support.

Anyway, I digress. What should I focus on for the next year? `` Work harder and thereby deliver more for less. Given my recent health problems I think that this maybe false economy (another “shout-out” for NHS direct and the South Ayrshire paramedics – no worries, I am on the mend) `` Learn to relax and look after myself – essential BUT how does one do that? Suggestions to me asap. `` New skills, new courses, development, development, development.

Well there is no money for courses within the dept despite the stated dedication to professionalism etc.

Plus, as I have found out, developing merely means that you out grow the talent pools so the best jobs

February 2010 | arcnews no.35

Arran (The Ayrshire one) are held back for those in need of further development not those who have already developed and gained experience!

Now I am beginning to sound like our President (Mr Doom and Gloom) but I do not see this as a depressing process. It is me being honest with myself and developing a plan to focus my attention and skills where they will do me the most good.

So I have decided that I am going: `` to read more this year `` take a few short courses with either Birkbeck or the OU `` to explore further courses with the TUC to support my work for ARC `` for work, just in case my boss thinks I have forgotten the day job, I am going to focus on strengthening and expanding my network of contacts across government and beyond `` to continue as an advisor for the Leadership Development Programme `` and finally, I am planning my holidays so far I am thinking St Petersburg, Berlin, and not

forgetting my annual trip to Athens – again any suggestions to me asap Okay, that’s me what about you guys particularly trainees and Bands T? Attend classes, pass exams, get course work finished on time, put all those skills you have been learning into practice, demonstrate grade 7 competences in all you do but never, never lose sight of that goal – to get promoted to Grade 7.

Did that sound scary, preachy, awful…? Well, I would agree it did, when I was a trainee, I never appreciated being reminded of it. But that GOAL is everything and if I can help any of you in this please do not hesitate to get in touch. You tend to wait until things go wrong but there is nothing to stop you getting in touch for a chat. Once I have handed over the London Centre Presidency, I hope to get out and about and meet more of you. If this sounds like a good idea get in touch either individually, in groups or via your BLMs. So Happy 2010 and wishing you all great success.

The Ayrshire Lass 29

THE BACK PAGE

“ Even the Taxpayers’ Alliance seems to take a

moral view – ignore the name, they represent taxpayers in the same way that the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association represented TV and radio users.”

the moral maze <<continued from back page

but the huge change in public attitudes must owe something to individuals altering their moral perception of homosexuality itself.

The list that began this article is far from complete, but one omission was deliberate.

Tax avoidance must be legal to work at all. The hallmark is that someone – in HMRC or in the judicial system – agrees that the arrangement works in strictly legal terms. But any list of activities which are legal but widely condemned would be incomplete without it. The question is, is there scope for a moral dimension to taxation?

There is no doubt that it is a question that now receives more attention than it used to.

Groups such as the Tax Justice Network (TJN)

30

– to which ARC is affiliated – and War on Want advocate an essentially moral attitude to taxation, especially in its international ramifications. Even the Taxpayers’ Alliance seems to take a moral view (ignore the name – they represent taxpayers in the same way that the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association represented TV and radio users).

Broadly they think that government is, at best, a necessary evil and therefore the taxation that finances it should be as low as possible.

In late October last year Dave Hartnett hosted a breakfast seminar at 1 Horse Guards with Richard Murphy (of the TJN among other things) entitled Tax and Morality. Murphy’s main point was that the commercial world bleats

arcnews no.35 | February 2010

THE BACK PAGE about wanting certainty, but that, in a world where nothing else is certain, the desire to have certainty in taxation is essentially unethical.

One of his proposed remedies was to include in tax legislation an explicit statement of its purpose so as to steer the courts towards a purposive interpretation. He took it for granted that frustrating the purpose of tax law while obeying the letter was immoral, and the audience seemed disinclined to challenge this head-on, although what one old boss of mine used to call ‘the forces of darkness’ were well represented. Myles Gardiner, in the Christmas issue (arcnews 34), reported on a joint meeting between the Chartered Institute of Taxation and ARC London Centre (also featuring the ubiquitous Richard Murphy) where similar concerns were expressed.

Of course there is a long history of companies distinguishing between business and morality, rather as the mafia do in The Godfather, and for companies, as we are constantly reminded, tax is merely a business expense. We know that companies fear revelations that may provoke moral revulsion among customers – witness, for example, the response of retailers when it emerges that child labour has been used in making the goods they sell, even though it may be perfectly legal in the jurisdiction concerned.

In the investment and savings field especially, an entire industry has grown up on the back of a previously unsatisfied demand from savers for investment vehicles that avoid such things as arms or tobacco manufacture, or harm to the environment or to indigenous peoples. Is it likely that a similar public attitude on tax avoidance could become sufficiently strong to influence corporate behaviour?

There are some indications. When The Guardian ran its series of in-depth articles on avoidance there were lots of defensive replies from the firms it identified, sometimes technical corrections, sometimes obfuscation (‘we pay a lot of PAYE and VAT’.) Obfuscation is easier with taxation than, say, child labour, because taxation is quite complicated. You have to know something of how the tax system works, or at least spend a bit of time thinking it through, to know that large corporates who quote their PAYE and VAT payments are talking rubbish. What was interesting, however, was how few were willing simply to brazen it out and claim that reducing the overall tax bill is a good thing in itself.

The current concern over the national February 2010 | arcnews no.35

finances may also have an effect. When the population is asked to make sacrifices to finance government debt repayment they may follow the Taxpayer’s Alliance and demand smaller government, although the consensus among the major parties seems to be that the public will continue to want more public services, perhaps delivered by fewer public servants. But maybe the public will be more responsive to the message that, when government passes the hat in the national interest, there are those whose pockets are deep but whose arms are short. The British attachment to standing one’s round is a moral as much as a financial imperative, witness the polling results after the PBR on the question of taxing bankers’ bonuses.

Years ago I edited Quarterly Record, the professional journal of ARC’s predecessor in the Inland Revenue, and we published a review of Tax Raiders: The Rossminster Affair

by Nigel Tutt. In the book, Tutt complained that, in pursuing the Rossminster avoidance schemes through the courts, Inland Revenue officers were taking a moral view of them. Our reviewer pointed out that, although they had been designed to comply with the letter of the law, the schemes eventually failed because they were overturned by the courts. In order to allow the courts to examine the schemes and conclude that they did not work, however, someone in the Inland Revenue had to take the view that the result of the schemes as originally presented was wrong.

The concern expressed by many members over the Mapeley arrangement when it came to light was essentially moral, and most will have anticipated, and understood, the department’s response that the arrangement was commonplace and accepted elsewhere.

Their problem was that HMRC is not just any tenant. With some things it as much about who you are as what you do. I do not know whether the Chancellor likes a flutter, but I have never seen him photographed at a roulette table, and I would be surprised if he (or any of his shadows) let it happen.

I don’t suppose that ARC members will be asked to swap their desks for pulpits or soapboxes anytime soon, and anyway the wagging finger is not an attractive posture. I do wonder, though, whether we are at the start of a change in public attitudes that will eventually prove to be on the same scale as the rejection of drink-driving or of smoking at work? | arcnews 31

THE BACK PAGE

The moral maze Will Richardson tackles the moral questions surrounding tax and avoiding it.

What links these human activities: abortion, adultery, arms dealing, arranged marriage, boxing, drinking, fornication, gambling, homosexuality, industrial action, masturbation, over-eating, pollution, prostitution, smoking?

There is a certain tendency, clearly, but some items seem to be odd ones out. And, of course, different people would identify different activities as not really belonging, because what actually links them is that, while they are all legal, they are all the target of moral opprobrium. Several are condemned by various religions, while others are the subject of secular distaste, but in every case there is a vocal group, large or small, who would like to impose a ban. Indeed, in some cases â&#x20AC;&#x201C; smoking, arms dealing, gambling and drinking are obvious examples â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the law meets the moralists half-way, imposing strict regulation but not prohibition. The most extreme example of this is prostitution. Widely condemned it may be, but, whether from Victorian hypocrisy or legislative carelessness, it remains legal while almost everything connected with it is a criminal offence.

These moral attitudes are not set in stone.

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Smoking is a good recent example of a sea change in public perception over only a generation or so. From James I, who seems to have regarded its omission from the deadly sins as a rare example of divine oversight, to General Montgomery, whose aversion to it was, in his time, a remarkable eccentricity, tobacco triumphed over its enemies. Now smoking is banned in public buildings and further restrictions, such as a ban on point-of-sale displays, are regularly and confidently canvassed. That tens of thousands of smokers have given up the habit may well be partly a rational calculation on health or financial grounds; the change in the attitudes of smokers and non-smokers to passive smoking seems to me to be much more a moral judgement.

Homosexuality shows an equally impressive movement in the opposite direction. Of course there were courageous campaigners (and there is much work still to do), and a rising generation with different ideas from their parents will have helped to swell the numbers, continued on page 30>>

arcnews no.35 | February 2010