arcnews 84, sept/oct 2016

I THINK IT’S VERY REFRESHING TO HAVE A NEW HEAD OF EMPLOYER RELATIONS FROM OUTSIDE THE CIVIL SERVICE

WE KNOW YOU VALUE THIS WORK, AND THAT YOU WANT US TO FIGHT OUR ANTIQUATED AND UNFAIR PAY SYSTEM

YOU HAVE DONE A GOOD JOB; I THINK THE DEPARTMENT HAS NO RIGHT TO ASK ANY MORE OF YOU THAN THAT

Vicky Johnson—14

Helen Baird-Parker—24

Jim Rogers—29

arcnews ISSUE 84 | AUG-SEP 2016

Global tax competition:

Where does it end?

RASMUS CHRISTENSEN EXAMINES THE ETHICS OF TAX COMPETITION—15

arctoday

read more online at arcunion.org.uk

EDITORIAL

Editorial Welcome to my first edition of arcnews as editor. I have a hard act to follow. Those of you who read the reprint of Will Richardon’s first editorial on page 11 will see that, where something has already been done well, I’m happy to take inspiration. While that editorial was eight years ago, there are a surprising number of points that resonated with me.

First, I should explain that, unlike Will, I do not come to this job having done a similar one previously. I have been on ARC Committee since 2012, and when Will needed some help for one edition I was happy to volunteer.

A couple of years later, I’m the editor. Will has been very generous in sharing his skills and experience with me, and much praise also goes to Craig Ryan and James Sparling at Lexographic who are always patient and helpful. Maybe I will go full circle and in 30 years I will become editor of the Virtual Reality headband that ARC is publishing on (I was trying to think futuristically and all I could picture was The Jetsons!). arcnews is still one of the most valued forms of communication for our members, though we have expanded our outlets significantly with Members’ Updates, blogs, Information ARC and of course the website (arcunion.org.uk – no prizes, but spot the plugs throughout this edition).

Various people are involved in these different communications outlets, but in terms of arcnews I have to thank Eva Braniff and Steve McFarlane who have been supporting Will with me for a while now, and continue to do great work. We also welcome Josh Flew and Ashley Falla to the team, so I can’t pretend I don’t have the necessary help!

Will talks of pestering people to write things for arcnews, and that still takes a lot of time. He also talks about wanting arcnews to be fully representative of members – and this is something I’m also passionate about. As you can see from the exchange between Vicky as President and a member on Page 22, this does have a real impact for a lot of people.

I’m sure many of you will be sad that you won’t be getting an editorial from Will Richardson in these pages any more, but I will do my best to keep my editorial witty and relevant as he has done. Damn, did I just say witty? Those who know me will know that witty is not my natural state.

On that note a final pre-apology. Will mentions in his valedictory article (page 10) his tedious adherence to English grammar. I will readily admit that I am neither an expert, nor do I worry too much about strict adherence. That is not to say it will go out of the window entirely, but if there is a drop in standard please remind me that I’m letting the side down.

I want to end with another bit of inspiration from Will. My experience as a previous deputy editor of arcnews is that letters are rarer than you might expect, but always welcome. Please write to me if there are things you think we should change, or even to just tell me about things you really liked or disliked.

Note: the new email address is arcnews@arcunion.org.uk.

Julie Blayney Editor

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arcnews

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FIRST

Photo Competition No entries this month, but from the ARC Dinner in Nottingham, here a delegate wearing the most ARC-colour-themed garment at the event. Please send us your suggestions for what is being thought or said to arcnews@arcunion.org.uk by September 15.

ARC’s new website is live. Go to arcunion.org.uk and log in using your membership number and password.

If you haven’t been sent one or can’t find it, simply email registration@arcunion.org.uk with your name and membership number and we’ll send you a reminder.

arcunion.org.uk

arcnews

is published by the Association of Revenue and Customs (ARC) 8 Leake Street London SE1 7NN www.arcunion.org.uk President:

Vicky Johnson, 020 7401 5559 President’s Secretary:

020 7401 5573

arcnews

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Membership:

020 7401 5590 membership@fda.org.uk Editor:

Julie Blayney arcnews@arcunion.org.uk Deputy Editor:

Steve McFarlane Team:

Josh Flew, Eva Braniff, Ashley Falla

Design & Production:

lexographic.co.uk Advertising:

Simon Briant SDB Marketing 01273 594455 simon@sdbmarketing.co.uk Printing:

Warners Midlands PLC The Maltings Manor Lane Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH

The views expressed in arcnews are not necessarily the views of the editor or the union. arcnews is printed on environmentallyfriendly paper produced from sustainable forests and wrapped in biodegradable polywrap.

Please recycle after you have finished reading this magazine.

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NEW COMMITTEE

Michelle Wyer I WANT HMRC TO TREAT THOSE PEOPLE THAT WE ARE LOSING WITH DECENCY AND DIGNITY. I ALSO WANT TO PRESS FOR HMRC TO HAVE A STRATEGY FOR ‘SURVIVOR SYNDROME’.

I

’m Michelle Wyer and some of you may remember me from 2006-08 when I had the honour of being ARC President. I’m older and even more voluptuous now but I have still managed to retain my sense of humour!

So what have I been doing since I last published in arcnews, Dear Readers? Well I worked with Mike Clasper as his Private Secretary – a great job that provided me with a fascinating insight into ‘Life at the Top’ and into strategy. After that I spent four and a half glorious years as AD National Minimum Wage – a job that I had wanted for years and was delighted to be able to do. Now I’ve stopped, however, I appreciate just how stressful it was at the cutting edge of politics, and doing junior doctor hours when you’re actually neither junior nor a doctor! In fact, I was probably paid less than the National Minimum Wage for the hours I 4

worked.

And so on to my current role as Team Leader of a Technical and Specialist team in Individuals and Small Business Compliance, what most of you would recognise as ‘SME’. I have a team of around 40 people (the numbers change all the time) in Stratford, Chelmsford, Watford, Ipswich and Norwich – it’s a ‘fords’ & ‘wich’ team! I love what I do. There’s nowhere I’d rather work than in frontline operations and after so long away from the tax frontline it’s certainly been a huge learning curve.

SME is ‘huge’, ISBC is ‘huge’ but we do fantastic, complex and essential work there. We have the same issues as everyone else, frustrating IT, frustrating quality checks but there is a real pride in what we do and in how well we do it, and we support each other – SME is a great place to do great work. I also do quite a bit of mentoring.

Outside of work I am married to Dave, who works in Immigration and Borders, so we’re a ‘double civil service’ couple. I love, love, love to read and to travel the world. I like swimming and, now I have my bionic hips, the gym. I take full advantage of living in London to attend as many shows as I can. And I try to get back to the Midlands to visit my family regularly.

So, what are my ARC priorities moving forwards? Well as leader of a high-performing team in Norwich, I’ve experienced firsthand how it feels to be losing great people. I want HMRC to treat those people that we are losing with decency and dignity. I also want to press for HMRC to have a strategy for ‘survivor syndrome’, for those of us left behind without those great colleagues, who have to continue to ‘do more with less’.

PMR – What can I say about this that hasn’t already been said?

I think that guided distribution demotivates ARC grades and has had a disproportionate impact on our members.

Personal casework remains our most important member services and I’m hoping that my experience in this area, as an appeals officer and someone sitting on one of SME’s PMR appeal panels, will help me to add value in this area.

And I’m here to support Vicky Johnson to do the fantastic job of ARC President, something that I know she is very passionate about. • arcnews

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FIRST

Joshua Flew

H

ello from one of your newest members of Committee. Despite being just a year into my career at HMRC, I have recognised the importance of a strong union to support its members during what promises to be a difficult few years. This is what prompted me to consider standing in June.

I hope to use my role on committee to involve myself in a variety of issues. This includes wider platform issues that require raising concerns collectively, such as the ongoing equal pay campaign, and individual support for colleagues who may be facing challenging circumstances. As a trainee the issues and decisions that directly impact the trainee community will obviously be of particular importance. This is underpinned by the fact that the propensity for change is particularly high on the graduate programme. Therefore it is important that the ‘powers that be’ are made aware of the multitude of individual ramifications that stem from their decisions.

I joined HMRC in September 2015 as a TSP trainee in Albert Bridge House, Manchester. Joining ARC was one of the first decisions arcnews

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I made when I joined. In fact I think I had my FDA membership card before I got my building pass (in hindsight this says more about internal administration than anything else).

As a trainee in Large Business I get to see the full breadth of HMRC’s compliance activity. I often spend half my day working with large groups on issues worth millions of pounds and the other working with SMEs trying to make sense of piles of ripped, smelly purchase receipts – if I am lucky and there are actually any records at all! While it is sometimes hard

to adapt to the different styles, it certainly adds variety to my week.

I have had a relatively short route to HMRC. I graduated in History from the University of Manchester in 2014 after which I worked as a teacher.

This was particularly challenging but some of the skills I gained in the classroom definitely come in handy at customer meetings!

Outside of work my biggest passion is travelling. My proximity to Manchester Airport means that the odd European city break is far too tempting and this offers a wealth of opportunities for ‘cultural enlightenment’ (beer and food). My preference is for bigger trips though with India being a particular highlight (no beer, but great food). I currently have my sights set on a trip to Japan (beer and raw fish).

When in the wetter climes of Manchester I like to try and take in everything the North West has to offer. This means that weekends in 2016 have so far included some great plays at the Royal Exchange, lower league football, cycling trips in the Peaks and a day at Old Trafford cricket ground dressed as a banana. •

I OFTEN SPEND HALF MY DAY WORKING WITH LARGE GROUPS ON ISSUES WORTH MILLIONS OF POUNDS AND THE OTHER WORKING WITH SMEs TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF PILES OF RIPPED, SMELLY PURCHASE RECEIPTS – IF I AM LUCKY.

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NEW COMMITTEE

Andy Nixon I HAVE RECENTLY COMPLETED A DEGREE IN SCOTTISH LAW THROUGH AN EVENING COURSE, THUS ENSURING I WILL STILL HAVE MORE LETTERS AFTER MY NAME THAN ARE IN IT, EVEN AFTER I RETIRE.

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I

joined the Inland Revenue in 1991 after earlier careers, first as a research biochemist working in Liverpool Polytechnic, Guy’s Hospital Medical School and the University of Warwick and then, after retraining, one year as a school teacher in Knowsley. I joined the Inland Revenue simply because it paid more to start the direct entrant training than I could earn by returning to research. I have stayed for 26 years because, against all expectation, I have really enjoyed the work.

I have been a direct tax specialist – tax inspector in old money – throughout my career, working in Local Compliance in Hemel Hempstead, Dunstable, Luton, Hertford and Hatfield before joining the LBO – the predecessor of today’s Large Business – in 2002 in Charles House in London, where I started working in life insurance, which still comprises part of my current job. I moved to Edinburgh LBO, Meldrum House in 2005, and have worked since in L&C in Glasgow (Cotton House) and Edinburgh (Elgin House) before moving to LBO in Glasgow (Portcullis House) around 2010.

There I have remained – the first time I have worked in one location for more than four years in my life!

My current job is partly as a direct life tax specialist, with most of my time spent as LB CT Planning Specialist for Scotland and Northern Ireland, advising

case teams in Edinburgh, Glasgow Aberdeen and Belfast on avoidance issues.

I have been an AIT/USRO/ARC activist since I joined the Inland Revenue and have served ARC and its predecessors on Regional Whitley (ask someone old if you don’t know what that was) and have been a personal caseworker since 2006, specialising in supporting members on long-term sick leave – usually to either return to work or get ill-health retirement.

This my third (non-consecutive) term on Committee and probably my last, as I reach retirement age at the end of this term. My main role on Committee will remain my personal casework, where I advise on IHR issues in addition

to working selected cases.

Outside work, my interests include acting as a Scout kayaking instructor, racing sailing boats of various sizes on Loch Lomond, sea kayaking and longdistance walking. I have recently completed a degree in Scottish Law through an evening course, thus ensuring I will still have more letters after my name than are in it, even after I retire and lose the right to use the HM Inspector of Taxes title.

I also am a Children’s Panel member – the panel is a Scottish institution that oversees the use of compulsory measures to support children in difficulty – whether as a result of neglect or abuse or because they have got on the wrong side of the law . • arcnews

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FIRST

today The new ARC website is now up and running at:

arcunion.org.uk Read the latest news, blogs and comment Get the latest on changes to pay, terms and conditions Get in touch with your local reps and committee members Flick through back issues of arcnews, information arc and members’ updates Join the discussion on the new ARC Forum Exchange ideas and comments with your fellow ARC members in our secure members’ area All members are automatically registered and you should have received your username and password by email. If you missed it, just email us with your FDA membership number and full name at registration@arcunion.org.uk and we’ll send you a reminder.

We’re continuing to develop the site and will be adding lots more content and features in the coming months. Please use the new ARC members’ forum let us know how we can improve the site and what else you’d like to see available online. Alternatively, email us at website@arcunion.org.uk.

Help us to develop the ARC website into a digital meeting place for members and help build the union for the future. arcnews

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OPINION

Big Fat Diet Wars

LAURA MAPSTONE URGES US TO THINK AGAIN ABOUT THE SUPPOSED BENEFITS OF A LOW-FAT DIET.

Y

ou may have seen the coverage in the media on 23 May when the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration published reports saying that it’s OK to eat fat – that we should probably eat less carbs and maybe even cut down on snacking. The response was immediate – government advisers and public health officials immediately gathered together to exclaim that such advice was completely irresponsible, people could die as a result, and speculated on which dark forces could be supporting such unfounded science.

The same week, I read my midsize expectations for 2016-17, asking me as a Grade 7 to help promote wellbeing. Always one to seize on any synergy that life offers me, I saw my chance and this article is my starter for ten 8

within HMRC. Dear readers, I was one of the sinister people supporting this report. It really matters to me, and hopefully, once you have read this article, it will mean a bit more to you too.

First some background – I developed gestational diabetes 22 years ago (at the end of May – not that I am counting) and this morphed effortlessly into Type 2 as I gave birth. I did not want my beautiful daughter to have a sick mother, so I put a significant part of my personal resources into staying healthy – I followed the official dietary guidelines, exercised and watched what I drank. Despite my best efforts, I got fatter and sicker, just like the doctor said I would.

So when the internet came along, I used it to access all the research and resources I could find. It was clear that the non-professional consensus was that low

carbohydrate, high-in healthy-fat, real food was the way to go. Going against the official guidelines and the well-meant advice of the medical profession took a bit of nerve and it wasn’t easy – it meant packed lunches, not going out so much and ignoring all office biscuits!

But it worked like a dream – I dropped weight, refused the medication that the doctors insisted I should take and my health improved immediately. It is still improving years later (although I have not yet mastered the effect that stress can have on blood sugar). I am now part of a large online community who support each other, and seized the chance to help with the Kickstarter funding of a collection of largely doctors and medical professionals who wanted to change both obesity and diabetes treatment for the better. arcnews

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FIRST

If it’s so easy why isn’t everyone doing it? Good question. Time for a brief recap of how it seems we got this far. In the 50s, an ambitious man, Ancel Keys, decided to try to answer America’s rising tide of concern about heart disease. There would clearly be money in it, so he carried out the Seven Countries Study, discarded the pesky inconsistent pieces of data and argued that fat, a food we had always eaten, was a killer.

Turned out it was a pretty easy sell to get people to believe that fat made people fat and gave them heart disease, so when in 1977 the McGovern committee published the American dietary guidelines, fat was deemed a culprit and the low fat guidelines came into being. (Though to be fair to Mr Keys, these were unintended consequences).

People just wanted to help. So to ensure the correct outcomes, arcnews

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official guidelines were formulated; scientists spent their entire careers churning out studies on rats and annual food questionnaires; the pharmaceutical industry developed drugs prescribed in their millions; food processors tooled up to give us low fat food by the bucketful and everyone blamed the patients who did not get better. Perhaps they did not understand or simply weren’t trying hard enough?

Well, more data, stricter guidelines and a clear treatment pathway would surely sort the problem?

Sadly, it hasn’t. In the work I do with T2 peer support groups, I have met many people who are trying really hard to do what they are asked but do not feel the system is helping and they are suffering for it. At the same time, we now have an Eat Well Guide formulated with the help of the food

industry, evidence that the science base is open to corruption and confirmation bias, and an increasing drug spend that is unsustainable.

Swept along by the congruence of good intentions and the opportunity for profit, only personal responsibility will help now that we have opened Pandora’s box.

Don’t take my word for it. Take an evening to sit back, perhaps with a glass of red, and do a thought experiment. Consider how evolution brought us this far – how did we survive surrounded by all that dangerous real food, with no convenient healthy options? Why has an abundance of cheap food not brought good health in its wake?

Then read the reports at phcuk. org, look at some of the case histories at www.dietdoctor.com. Consider the Credit Suisse reports on fat and sugar. If you like a long read, The Diet Delusion by Gary Taubes is a good place to start.

Then do something about it.

Think of the impact we could have on AWDL. • LAURA MAPSTONE IS AN ARC MEMBER. THIS OPINION ARTICLE DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF ARC.

today

arcunion.org.uk/fatdietwars/ 9

ARCNEWS

An Editor says goodbye for now WILL RICHARDSON

A

stute readers (and that means all of you, as I know to my cost) will have noticed that the Editorial in this issue is signed by Julie Blayney as Editor. I have stepped down and Julie has stepped up – if that’s the right word. We both thought that, after eight years in the chair, it might be appropriate for me to say a few words about my time as Editor.

I took over in 2008, at the beginning of Terry Cook’s Presidency, when arcnews was still quite young (although its origins run back to USRO Update and, before that, AIT News. We’ve always preferred Ronseal-style titles for our magazine). It wasn’t my first period as an editor; I spent three years from 1988 as Editor of Quarterly Record, the old AIT’s professional journal, and enjoyed it tremendously. I also spent a happy decade or so writing a slightly subversive column in Public Service, the FDA’s magazine, under the disguise of Julius Drainman (no prizes for spotting the anagram), a grade 5 in a fictional directorate dealing with drains and landfill, who was at permanent war with his director but ably supported by his staff and his minister. And, of course, I spent the thirty years from 1986 to 2016 on Committee, serving as Honorary Secretary and VicePresident for about half of that time, and twenty years on the FDA Executive, a decade of which I spent as the FDA’s Treasurer. You can probably tell by now that I originally trained as an historian.

Having said all of that, editing 10

THE LAST EIGHT YEARS HAVE BEEN A HOOT, AND I STEP DOWN IN THE HAPPY KNOWLEDGE THAT ARCNEWS IS IN SAFE HANDS WITH JULIE AND WILL GO FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH. I’LL SPEND A BIT MORE TIME WITH THE KIDS, THE CHICKENS AND THE CATS.

arcnews has (along with a few cherished victories in personal cases) been the most pleasurable of the many union jobs I have done.

When I took over we were publishing a black-and-white magazine with a red masthead, usually about eight pages long. The product you now hold in your hand, or have up on your screen, is very different, and a lot better. I wish that I could claim the credit for that. I played my part, or course, but the big change came when our designers and typesetters, Lexographic secured us a new printing contract with radically cheaper postage, and the then Treasurer, Martin Fletcher, allowed us to use some of the saving to move to full-colour printing. We also had the good fortune to have a series of regular Committee contributors on their own specialist areas, of whom Sarah Guerra, Iain Campbell and Helen Baird-Parker stand out in my mind, although there were many others. Successive

Presidents stepped up to the challenge of writing a front page article of some length for each issue, and Terry Cook must take credit for cementing this tradition and obliging his successors to continue it.

As I write, the new website has been launched and our aim of moving to a really successful web presence is on the way to being achieved. One day – who knows how long it will take? – arcnews and the rest of ARC’s communications with members will be mostly online. This carries risks – flicking through a paper magazine is a lot easier than responding to an email inviting you to look at the new content on the website, as newspapers and magazines all over the world are discovering.

But it does offer the prospect of saving all the printing and postage budget, and the evidence from members surveyed on the subject indicates that they appreciate this financial imperative. arcnews

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WILL’S FIRST EDITORIAL

Welcome to my first issue of arcnews as editor. I have a hard act to follow, since under Liz Bullivant’s guidance, in co-operation with Michelle Wyer as President, arcnews went from strength to strength, becoming the trusted source of information for our members and for many of their colleagues outside the union.

This new job brings me, in some ways, full circle. My first substantive responsibility as a relatively new member of what was, then, the AIT Committee was to edit Quarterly Record. There is a big difference between editing a quarterly professional journal, of course. But there is also a difference in the times. In between I spent nearly twenty years as either Honorary Secretary or Vice President, and both the Department and the union changed. The ARC Committee is much more active, in depth, than the old AIT Committee of the early 90s, and you have all seen this is the contributions to arcnews. It’s a far cry from my days of pestering technical specialists to find something to say that had not already been said in some departmental publication, and that could still safely be said in a quasipublic forum.

I hope that, with our New President, Terry Cook, we can continue to bring you regular insights from Committee members who do the coalface negotiations with management at various levels. I also want to continue Liz’s and Michelle’s success in ensuring the full diversity of our membership – in their jobs, in their professional and managerial backgrounds, and in their personal lives and outlook- is represented in arcnews. And I am sure that Terry will continue Michelle’s success in persuading senior members of the department to contribute articles explaining what they do and why, even when they are, misguidedly, not members of ARC. Liz Bullivant left me a must-read magazine, and I’ll try to live up to the tremendous responsibility that this entails. Having said all that, this edition is always a bit of a one-off, following as it does immediately on our AGM and Dinner, and inevitable dominated by the business (and pleasure) of those occasions. I hope you enjoy reading Dave Hartnett’s frank and friendly speech to the AGM, Michelle’s keynote address, and the pictures of the AGM and the dinner. If I didn’t already know it, that week in mid-May would always remind me of what a great union we have, and what an astonishing level of activism and commitment we achieve from such a small number of people.

My experience as a previous editor of QR is that letters are rarer than you might expect, but always welcome. Please write to me if there are things you think we have missed, things we should change, or even merely things you really liked or disliked.

I can claim credit for introducing interviews, although you’d be surprised how difficult they can be to secure (which is why you haven’t seen many recently), and how hard it can be to get senior managers to say something interesting. Union leaders have never presented the latter problem. We also faced constant demands from management interviewees for final editorial sign-off; either a sad arcnews

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lack of confidence or a well-founded distrust of me.

My big disappointment has been that we couldn’t get more advertising. When I edited Quarterly Record we had regular slots from recruitment agencies (recruitment advertising commands a higher price than general consumer stuff, and the latter would not be attracted to a magazine with our small circulation).

The market has changed, partly because of the internet, and we have not been able to sell space in the twenty-first century that we could in the eighties.

The last eight years have been a hoot, and I step down in the happy knowledge that arcnews is in safe hands with Julie and will go from strength to strength, on paper and online. I’m not going away (I can’t afford to retire) but I’ll spend a bit more time with the kids, the chickens and the cats. I was disappointed that, when I decided not to stand for Committee this year and leave room for a younger generation, there weren’t enough candidates to fill the vacancies, but the recent by-election brought forth new young members to fill most of the remaining seats. If the remaining vacancies aren’t filled, who knows, I may stand again. In the spirit of the recent National Lottery advertising campaign, that should encourage you to think about standing for Committee.

I apologise to any contributors who have suffered from my tedious adherence to English grammar, which, despite popular opinion, does exist. Personally, I would not have placed on people’s lock screens the sentence, ‘Our customers are getting through quicker’. This is not because I am old-fashioned. It is because people whose first language is not English expect the government to be an example they can follow, and because migrants to this country take the trouble to learn our language, so the least the government can do is take the trouble to speak it reasonably correctly. If I could give one piece of linguistic advice to our leaders it would be ‘don’t use the word “myself ” until you’ve found out what it means’ (and yes, I mean you Lin Homer). Rant over, as the kids say.

We’ll meet again, possibly in these pages, or maybe at the annual dinner, but not on page two.

Goodbye and good luck. • 11

VICKY JOHNSON GRAPPLES WITH SETTING UP NEW STRUCTURES.

SCALING

THE

HEIGHTS? I

t seems a long time since April and my first few weeks as President. When I wrote my first update for arcnews it was all very new and I made a schoolgirl error in my first article by telling you it was quite lonely. I didn’t expect it to become the front of arcnews – so I won’t make that mistake again. Neither will I make the mistake of not checking with the FDA pensions expert when I need to know what level the 7.35% contribution rate kicks in at. Neither will I… Are you getting the picture? It’s a very steep learning curve and it’s a lot like climbing a mountain. You take small steps towards the summit you can see and when you reach it there’s another one, even steeper and further away from the last. I fully expect to see that thought depicted on the front of this edition with an inspiring headline like, ‘ARC President nears another summit after monumental climb’! [as if ].

I’ve been writing a blog on a weekly basis – something I said I would do but which is actually quite time consuming, and it’s very difficult to know how much I can actually say. So I’m going to expand on some of the issues but first I’m going to explain how I have organised Committee.

You will read about our four new Committee members in this issue; we are now a

12

arcnews

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PRESIDENT’S SAY

Committee of 23, two under the maximum amount and so unless there are any significant changes I won’t be holding a further election. I’m delighted we’ve been joined by another trainee, Josh Flew, two recently promoted ‘12s’, Ashley Falla and Ben Barnett, and

by Heather Morrison, who brings the total number of women on Committee to eight. All four of these new Committee members bring a range of talents to the table and are already volunteering to help with the work we are doing on the website, arcnews and PMR (for example, that’s not an exhaustive list).

So firstly, we have new Centre Liaison Officers – they can be found on our new website at www.arcunion. org.uk . Click on the ‘Contacts’ button and then select ‘ARC Committee’.

Please do contact your CLO if you have any queries and when you organise your Centre Meetings, please invite them along. I will be asking each Committee member to contact the Centre Officials before each Committee meeting so we are aware of the issues facing each centre.

Then we have a lead for each directorate, so that if there is an urgent issue the directorate knows who to contact within ARC. It will not necessarily be the lead who deals with the issue, but they are the first port of call.

Effectively this means it is ARC who will chase down whoever is needed and not the business. We have split the directorates down into Lines of Business and we are finding “Business as Usual” meetings are appearing in calendars as thing settle down. The table also shows the directorate lead and the committee members particular portfolio, if they have one. But I have taken away a lot of the detail to make it easier to see what lies where. I am sure we will be adding rather than taking away as we go forwards since new issues appear (or reappear) weekly.

Finally we have the Regional Centre arcnews

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LAST YEAR’S DEBACLE ON PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS NEEDED TO BE AVOIDED AND THE EMPLOYER WAS VERY KEEN TO DO SO. I WAS ABLE TO GET THE AWARD INTO YOUR PAY FOR JUNE (DESPITE ATTEMPTS TO DERAIL THIS WITH SUGGESTIONS THAT THE SAME AMOUNT TO BE GIVEN TO EVERYONE OR THE PERFORMANCE POT BE SHARED BETWEEN EVERYONE).

Leads. These are the Committee members who are leading on that Regional Centre. They don’t necessarily attend the Regional Engagement Groups as we have tried, where possible, to put those out to local members who have a handle on the issues day to day. That said, we do sit on some of those groups and I have attended the West Midlands ones when I have been in Birmingham.

Please do explore the website (arcunion.org.uk). Your login details have been sent by email, but if you can’t find them please contact registration@arcunion.org.uk and they will provide you with new login details.

Hopefully, you will find it easy to see who you need to contact. We are working on a separate page for the Regional Centre Contacts so that they become easier to find and, as part of the work we are doing on motions from Conference 2016, we are considering what our structure will look like post 2021 and whether we can prepare now.

In terms of big ticket items my first real challenge (apart from chairing Committee) was to finish the pay negotiations. Last year’s debacle on pension contributions needed to be avoided and the employer was very keen to do so. I was able to get the award into your pay for June (despite attempts to derail this with suggestions that the same amount to be given to everyone or the performance pot be shared between everyone) but not without a hidden cost – which made my blood boil that when I discovered it (please note I have not used the phrase used by another union chief about the exit payments to Cameron’s Special Advisors). It was even more annoying

when I realised I had checked for the pension ‘contribution’ rates in the wrong place. So apologies to all of you who are now back in the 7.35% rate having dropped into 5.45% in April. I have flagged this with the pay team and said I want to try to make sure the issue is thoroughly explored next year.

Next year the limit rises to £51,005, but all that does is move the problem further up the range, so I have also been talking to other FDA officers to see what other departments have done.

Once the pay award was finalised we drew up a timetable to discuss pay on a monthly basis. We are considering the length of the scales, the equality issues, the impact performance has on pay and we will be discussing all of these issues (and more) ready for negotiations the 2017 pay award.

Next is the continual issue of the Building Our Future Office closure programme, on which we hold monthly meetings with Ravi Chand’s team to discuss what is happening and where.

There is some inconsistency in how offices have been dealt with and I made such a fuss at one meeting that Ravi ended up travelling to Inverness for the 14 July announcements. I haven’t seen sight nor sound of him since but I am assured he survived.

The best advice I could give him was to take a coat and a map! Of course that announcement related to the 2017-18 closures and we are still very much involved in the 2016-17 closures, where the latest round of Voluntary Exit Offers has now been completed and we have to move into the next phase. This has necessitated a number of meetings around protocols and a very interesting discussion around the concept → 13

VICKY’S FIRST APPEARANCE IN ARCNEWS

of a decision maker who doesn’t actually make a decision and an appeal manager who need not be a grade higher than the decision maker (who hasn’t made a decision anyway).

They’ve gone away to have a rethink on that one.

I think it’s very refreshing to have a new Head of Employer Relations, Chris Elliott, who is from outside the Civil Service. He has oodles of experience in redundancy processes, but none of how HMRC works. It makes for some very interesting discussions.

I don’t quote industrial relations legislation at anyone – I don’t think I even know what the latest act is (yes, I know, perhaps I should) but PCS have done so once or twice and they can’t outflank him.

We continue to consider PMR and will shortly be discussing the VOA pilot with their HR department. I have a small sub group, led by Paula Houghton, ready to go once we have had the meeting. They will be working on a paper that will suggest how we think we could take the pilot and adapt it where necessary for use in HMRC. We have been told there will be some simplification of the current process in time for mid-year 2016-17 but we would like to see a new system in place – one without a guided distribution if possible. Our new CEO is very receptive to this so we are pushing at an 14

open door and hope to influence what happens in a positive way.

We have also been arranging next year’s conference, working on updating the rules following this year’s conference, running casework training, arranging a special session on RDT, DTA, HMA (other acronyms are available) so that each region has a IN A BIZARRE caseworker who COINCIDENCE, IT specialises in TURNS OUT THAT those issues ISSUE WAS ALSO ready for any queries arising THE FIRST TIME out of the 1-2-1 I EVER WROTE process, meeting ANYTHING FOR with the employee engagement ARCNEWS – IT team to discuss WAS MY FIRST the survey, meetCONFERENCE ing with the OD AND MICHELLE people, considerWYER, WHO WAS ing FDA Executive Committee PRESIDENT AT papers, dialling THE TIME, ASKED in to Business as ME TO WRITE MY Usual calls, helping to reinstate IMPRESSIONS. the SCS appeal process for performance markings, keeping tabs on the changes to TSP, co-ordinating casework...

The list is endless and reinforces what I said in my first blog this

August, that Committee are all working really hard on your behalf. But we’re always open to suggestions about other things you need us to consider. You can email me on vicky@fda. org.uk if you think of something. I’m not making any promises but I always read emails and I usually respond quite quickly.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank Will Richardson for his work over the years on arcnews. Will is stepping down as editor and Julie Blayney has taken over. Julie will be moving us towards a web-based publication as well as a paper one.

Over the eight years Will has been editor he has built our arcnews into a very professional publication. He assures me he will remain engaged with us and will continue to do casework which is reassuring but he hands over the reins in this edition with a valedictory piece (see page 10). So I thought it only fair to share his first editorial – from arcnews 22 published back in July 2008.

In a bizarre coincidence, it turns out that issue was also the first time I ever wrote anything for arcnews – it was my first conference and Michelle Wyer, who was President at the time, asked me to write my impressions. I wrote far too much so there’s a shortened version in arcnews with probably the most awful picture ever (I don’t take a good picture). Reading it brought back some happy memories though – including Michelle singing her speech at the dinner that night. I can assure you all right now that I will not be doing that, but I am considering poetry, limericks or something Pam Ayres like – or maybe not!

Many thanks to Will for all his efforts over the last eight years and welcome to Julie who I know will do a great job and is already discussing how to make a difference. • arcnews

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INTERNATIONAL TAX COMPETITION

Catching

Capital

Thoughts on Dietsch and tax competition RASMUS CHRISTENSEN EXAMINES THE EFFECT GLOBAL COMPETITION AMONGST TAX RATES HAS ON THE WORLD ECONOMY.

Globalisation and the intensified competition among firms in the global marketplace has had and continues to have many positive effects. However, the fact that tax competition may lead to the proliferation of harmful tax practices and the adverse consequences that result, as discussed here, shows that governments must take measures, including intensifying their international co-operation, to protect their tax bases and to avoid the world-wide reduction in welfare caused by tax-induced distortions in capital and financial flows.

Harmful Tax Competition: An Emerging Global Issue, OECD, 1998.

W

Read more of Rasmus’s blogs at fairskat.org

arcnews

hile the issue had been of interest to academics for decades before, the 1998 OECD report really put ‘tax competition’ on the global political agenda. A substantial body of literature has followed, but rarely does it touch upon the ethical foundations of tax competition.

A recent book by Peter Dietsch, professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Montreal, does just that. Catching Capital: The ethics of tax competition sets out to accomplish three main things. It seeks to investigate the phenomenon of tax competition and its ethical underpinnings, to argue that it is damaging, and to offer a useful solution to the issue.

Given the book was published in almost a year ago, in August 2015, it seems to have received relatively little buzz. As far as I have been able to identify, there

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→ 15

are only a few reviews available, and just a handful of citations and mentions. But perhaps it is too early to judge. Having read the book with interest, I offer my thoughts below, not quite as a pure review but also as a repository for thoughts on the arguments and ideas put forward by Dietsch in the book.

As an introductory summary, I found the book both entertaining in its specific point of attack (ethics), and its substantive arguments and normative character. Dietsch delves fascinatingly into the political philosophy of taxation, a theme so basic yet so far from modern tax discussions, whilst connecting the philosophical discussions to relevant, important real-world issues. The discussions go deep when the author desires (for instance when dismissing the economic efficiency arguments against tax co-operation) and shallow elsewhere (as in discussing current international tax reform streams). The structure, at times, leaves something to be desired – the arguments flow within and across chapters, so can become muddled; and in the author’s persistence to immediately address all potential angles and criticisms of the topic at hand, the pace is often disturbed or broken. But all in all, it is a well-argued and thoughtful piece that succinctly explains both a burning platform, an interesting future solution, and a roadmap towards addressing tax competition today.

The book is structured around five key themes, which – to give it all away – can be crudely summed up as follows: »» Tax competition harms fiscal sovereignty. »» The solution to tax competition is WTO-style international tax law and arbitration based on “do no strategic harm” principles. »» Tax co-operation is not inefficient in economic models, and even if it was, this would not mean that it is inefficient in the real world. »» National sovereignty is enhanced by international tax co-operation, not eroded. »» Compensatory duties are needed 16

for low-income countries that currently win from tax competition, in order to smooth a transition to the new system.

Tax competition harms fiscal sovereignty On the first theme, the point made by Dietsch is clear: tax competition renders national polities unable to tax capital at their choosing, given that it can escape and transform flexibly to avoid the tax grasp of states. Put simply, capital is darn difficult to tax under current national and international tax systems, and in today’s

a means to tax corporations more effectively, are based on formulaic apportionment through less mobile factors such as sales and employee numbers.

But it raises the question of whether or not it is really a good idea to just ‘give up’ taxing capital because it is hard. It may create outcomes that are problematic from an ethics or equity viewpoint. As Dietsch writes, the trend to shift taxation from capital to labour, consumption and land has had the effect that “OECD countries have bought fiscal stability in terms of revenue at the cost of a less redistributive system” (p. 48).

“No strategic harm” and an International Tax Organisation So what are national politicians to do these days? In chapter 2, Dietsch offers his reply: An International Tax Organisation (ITO), modelled on the World Trade Organisation (WTO), with two key principles of global tax justice, enshrined in international law and enforced via arbitration and expert panels: »» The membership principle (with a transparency corollary) »» The fiscal policy constraint

world of globalised capital markets.

And the effect is damaged national fiscal sovereignty; citizens cannot any longer decide how and how much they want to tax capital – their choices are institutionally limited and some will inevitably be ineffective.

What has become the ‘natural’ consequent conclusion in policy circles is that we should stop trying to tax capital, and instead tax immobile factors (consumption, land and to a lesser extent labour), as my blog on European tax policy¹ plainly shows. Thus the most popular current streams in addressing tax competition tend to accept this slipperiness and nudge us to avert the tax gaze elsewhere. Even more radical reform ideas, such as unitary taxation, which are viewed as

The former is simple in wording, but the devil is in the detail. Individuals and corporations should pay tax in the state where they are members, ie. where they benefit from the services provided by the corresponding tax expenditure (eg. public services or infrastructure). And in order to make this assessment, states need transparency, ie. access to information on economic agents’ behaviour and assets across borders.

Hallelujah, on we go. Right? Not quite. What exactly constitutes ‘benefits from?’ Is there a certain threshold, in terms of time, resources invested, or other tangible support received?

Unfortunately, Dietsch does not offer sufficient detailing of the practical implementation of the principle. How are we to judge whether and to what extent a person or a company is a member of a state? In this respect, the membership principle is somewhat arcnews

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INTERNATIONAL TAX COMPETITION

analogous to the ongoing discussions at the OECD and EU levels on what exactly constitutes “taxing profits where value is created” – a phase repeated so often by international tax policy-makers that it has lost all meaning. The challenge lies in defining membership, as it does in defining value creation.

The fiscal policy constraint holds that countries should not engage in tax competition which collectively puts countries worse off (a reverse Pareto test, in economic terminology).

In order to do so, Dietsch holds, tax policies must not:

»» strategically (deliberately) be designed to attract economic activity from other states, and »» negatively affect the aggregate fiscal self-determination of the countries in question.

If a national fiscal policy is strategic but non-damaging, it’s okay. This could be where, for example, Scandinavian countries invest heavily in free education so as to attract foreign capital. If it is damaging but non-strategic, that’s okay. This could be where citizens, say of the US, have exercised their democratic voice to express a preference for relatively low taxes and public spending. If it is both, that’s not okay. Dietsch cites the Irish tax regime as an example here.

The main ideational and theoretical novelty in Dietsch’s proposals here is these principles. The question of a World Tax Organisation has been discussed for decades. But Dietsch’s ethics-oriented inquiry has produced two key principles that are open to challenge, but also coherent and useful in assessing what is and what is not ‘acceptable’ tax competition. Indeed, arcnews

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Dietsch himself notes that the key challenge of his book is to “identify where the boundaries of the fiscal autonomy prerogative should lie, and what institutions serve to protect them”. But whereas most proposals to address this question, including those surveyed by Dietsch in the book (capital controls and unitary taxation), offer technical solutions to regulating capital (or abstaining from it), Dietsch’s solution is fundamentally different. It is philosophical, and principles-based. The above is not to dismiss his contribution on the enforcement side. Dietsch usefully substantiates the case for sovereigntypooling, which is a key prerequisite for most effective enforcement proposals (I’ll discuss this further when addressing chapter four, which concerns sovereignty).

On the other hand, the high-level nature of his solutions also means certain technical details are unaddressed.

Though the author does touch upon these points, it never becomes quite clear how the membership principle is to be determined, how the intentions and outcomes of national fiscal policies are to be evaluated, or how exactly to avoid all the pitfalls of an ITO’s inspiration, which the WTO has experienced (for instance the continued geopolitical features of its decisions and rules).

Now, the effects of Dietsch’s proposals, if carried out, are not to be understated. He characterises three types of tax competition, of which the two former are the most problematic and harmful: competition for portfolio capital, for paper profits and real FDI [Foreign Direct Investment]. These are, to some extent substitutive. As long as businesses can shift paper profits, there is less need to reallocate real FDI. The effect of decreasing competition, in particular of the two first types, will be to produce more real and true market and economic competition for actual investment and actual economic activity. This is a similar argument we often hear about other proposed solutions, such as unitary taxation and the EU CCCTB [Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base]

– that in limiting ‘backdoor’ tax competition (or poaching), “real” competition would intensify. And that is most likely correct. But as Dietsch details, open, real and fair competition should be preferred (even though it creates other issues) to hidden, on-paper and selective competition. One reason is that the former follows the membership principle, so that when income or assets are shifted between countries, it will align with the location where benefits are obtained from the expenditures of taxes paid.

Tax cooperation is not inefficient Having outlined the burning platform and the solution, Dietsch needs to defend his proposals. There is no shortage of economic and legal analysis to counter-argue his case. Meeting the former head on, Dietsch adds to his analysis on tax competition as damaging fiscal sovereignty in a philosophical sense, with the point that tax co-operation is not inefficient from an economic point of view. Note that Dietsch’s focus is not on ambitious arguments that tax cooperation is efficient or that tax competition is inefficient per se. He sets out to demonstrate the more moderate claim that tax cooperation, of the sort he advocates, is not economically inefficient.

I was happy to see Dietsch open this argument with an important point, which often gets lost in popular tax debates: tax is only one side of the fiscal coin. The other side is public spending. In standard economics, taxation is often a bad thing, because the corresponding expenditure is assumed not to outweigh the welfare loss created by the tax raised. But Dietsch argues that this general assumption is importantly flawed. Tax provides basic market-enabling (legal frameworks, health and safety, etc.) services and public goods, along with investments in education, health, infrastructure, etc. – all of which may outweigh deadweight losses. Similarly, arguments that tax competition is efficient because it leads to economic growth often rely on assumptions that markets are perfectly competitive, and that resulting economic growth → 17

FIGURE 1

Pick Two: Preserve national sovereignty

will lead to welfare gains that outweigh the corresponding losses.

Dietsch finds this to be unrealistic and improbable, in particular at the global level, not least because of the presence of public goods and negative spill-over effects (it may lead to national gains at the expense of neighbouring countries, but this is a lesser argument as it guarantees a race to the bottom).

One of the key points in Dietsch’s dismissal of tax co-operation as economically inefficient concerns optimal tax theory. Proponents of tax competition who leverage optimal tax theory hold that lowering taxes will result in increased labour supply and a decrease in tax evasion and avoidance. Analytically, the consequence is less need for tax co-operation to stem a race to the bottom of capital taxation.

And this may be empirically true today. But these elasticities (the extent to which the labour supply and evasion/avoidance change with tax rate changes) are (partly) institutionally determined; and thus Dietsch argues there is no reason to assume today’s elasticities for tomorrow – they can be modified through policies and thus we can change the factors in the optimal tax calculation. For instance, by introducing stronger international co-operation on capital tax evasion, it is possible limit the tax evasion elasticity, and thus make tax systems more progressive by increasing the optimal levels of capital taxation, shifting the tax burden back on to mobile capital factors.

The upshot of Dietsch’s line of argumentation is two-fold. Firstly, because the assumptions underlying economic pro-tax competition models assume away key institutional features and fail to capture real life features adequately, they tend to prescribe levels of capital taxation that are below the optimum. Secondly, because these standards models are insufficient, 18

Avoid double taxation Dietch calls for better empirical research on whether specific tax policies represent aggregate (Pareto) improvements or deteriorations of welfare, rather than whether tax competition in general is good or bad. On these points, it is fair to question whether Dietsch’s assessment of economic theory and research is somewhat stylised. The economic literature on tax competition is diverse and comes to conclusions all along the spectrum, as Dietsch also recognises.

Yet his dismissal of this literature rests mostly on general traits and models, which may be dominant in the literature, but which do not paint the full picture.

Tax cooperation enhances, not erodes, national sovereignty The second key defence that Dietsch makes for his proposals is that tax cooperation does not undermine national sovereignty. Traditionally, this has been the main argument against international tax co-operation. Countries want to retain full rights over taxation, often viewed as a cornerstone of the sovereign nation-state and a key part of the social contract. More than anything else, this is why we do not have international co-operation on tax to the same extent we have it on trade or human rights.

But the trade-off between co-operation and sovereignty, and the notion of sovereignty which this perception of a trade-off implies, is inadequate in today’s world, argues Dietsch. The choice today is to maintain full authority, based on the outdated Westphalian concept of sovereignty, remaining unable to tax capital effectively, or to

Curb tax competition pool some sovereignty for effective capital taxation, thus reinforcing sovereignty itself.

While Westphalian sovereignty – the agreement on non-intervention in a state’s internal affairs by other states, named after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia – may have been a useful framework for fiscal policies in a world of immobile production factors, it falls short in a globalised world. The fundamental mismatch between internationally mobile capital and territorially-bound states cannot be ignored.

As Dietsch’s colleagues, Thomas Rixen and Philipp Genschel have detailed, any individual country faces a trilemma in addressing tax competition. It can only curb tax competition by relaxing sovereignty or unilaterally engaging in double taxation (figure 1).

The international tax system of today is based on the historical choice to pick national sovereignty and avoiding double taxation, as countries avoid real international co-operation and emphasise the avoidance of double taxation through bilateral tax treaties.

One of the most important interventions of this book is to remind us that national sovereignty is not absolute.

Just like with individual personal freedom, the authority of an individual country will always, at some point, impact the authority of another. The myth of absolute freedom or absolutely sovereignty is just that – a myth.

Here, Dietsch latches on to recent developments in international law and argues that sovereignty needs to be recast as a responsibility rather than a right. This means it comes with caveats, of which Dietsch in particular highlights the requirement to respect arcnews

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INTERNATIONAL TAX COMPETITION

THE DELIBERATE LACK OF NORMATIVITY IS ALSO A STRENGTH AT TIMES. DIETSCH PROPOSES NO SUBJECTIVE THEORY OF ‘FAIRNESS’ OR ‘JUSTICE’, NOR ANY OPINION ON THE ‘RIGHT’ LEVELS OR BALANCE OF TAXATION AND SIMILAR QUESTIONS. the fiscal self-determination of other states. If we accept this argument, that sovereignty is a responsibility, the act of tax co-operation becomes in fact not a violation of sovereignty but a central feature of it.

This is an idea becoming increasingly loud. As recent as July 10, Harvard professor Lawrence Summers launched a call in the Washington Post for “responsible nationalism.” His words align well with Dietsch’s analysis – “What is needed is a responsible nationalism — an approach where it is understood that countries are expected to pursue their citizens’ economic welfare as a primary objective but where their ability to damage the interests of citizens of other countries is circumscribed. Unfortunately for Dietsch and Summers, this is also an idea that is unlikely to take hold just yet. Whether based on a correct analysis or not, national self-determination remains the ultimate backstop to international co-operation (in particular on tax) in the eyes of national policy-makers.

Transitional justice Before rounding off, Dietsch explores a number of subsidiary ethical questions related to the implementation of his proposals. Should small developing countries be allowed to continue tax competition? How should we calculate compensatory duties (Dietsch’s proposal for sanctions under the new ITO regime)? And what about the populations of existing tax havens? While these are interesting explorations, the book skips quickly across the topics, which leads us to conclude they are included largely for the sake of mention. The limited analyses, eg. on the calculation of tax losses from competition (an extremely difficult topic in itself ), also means this is the weakest part of the book. arcnews

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A diligent, normative, and also non-normative book In conclusion, it is worth highlighting that Dietsch’s book is a normative one.

It argues that tax competition is significant and damaging, and it proposes a real solution to deal with this problem.

But then again it also deliberately avoids, somewhat awkwardly, being normative. In fact, the author is extremely careful to emphasise what he is and is not making claims about.

Dietsch notes, for instance, that income inequalities within and between countries are exacerbated by tax competition, but makes no definitive claims as to whether this is good or bad. At times, the author provides almost all the arguments necessary to make further normative claims, but avoids going all the way, perhaps for fear of over-stretching or because he finds their solutions immediately unfeasible or out of scope. This is, in a sense, admirable integrity, but also to some extent disappointing.

In avoiding some of those conclusions, I think a lot is missed. I applaud Dietsch for his diligence in bringing his arguments, again and again, back to questions of ethics. To my mind, most of the key questions we discuss today on tax issues always somehow trace back to questions of morality (for Dietsch, of course, this question of ethics is not about individual agents but rather the ethics behind the design of institutional systems to deal with tax and tax competition – another debatable omission). Unfortunately, Dietsch often avoids actually making any substantive claims regarding ethics, beyond those concerned with national fiscal sovereignty. For instance, Dietsch’s book is adamant that tax competition is really only a problem for the sovereignty of large states (because small states benefit from it), and the solution should come from these countries. If the book finalised

its lines of argument that tax competition worsens inequality (which may hurt the economy too), that it increases the risk of, and exacerbates, financial crises, that it distorts fair market competition, and so forth – in addition to the substantiated claim that it undermines sovereignty – he might have come to the conclusion that it is not only detrimental to large states, and that is a problem wider in scope than sovereignty.

On the other hand, the deliberate lack of normativity is also a strength at times. Dietsch proposes no subjective theory of ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’, nor any opinion on the ‘right’ levels or balance of taxation and similar questions, and he develops principles and recommendations that are applicable largely without reference to national or international politics or tax systems. In this way, he leaves the utilisation of his arguments open to a range of actors and groups with varying interests.

Because of the author’s diligence, while there are and will continue to be prominent counter-arguments to the ideas advanced by Dietsch in this book, the book has already surveyed and responded to many of the most obvious ones, at every turn of the argument, though with varying conviction and success. But even if one only buys halfway into the proposals put forth, accepting some of the ideas as relevant, this is an important stepping stone. As Dietsch, citing Pablo Gilabert, notes, “if the institutional reforms laid out in part I turn out to be unfeasible for political reasons today, there still are a number of things we can and should do to make their implementation possible in the future.” • FAIRSKAT.ORG/2016/06/14/FIVE-YEARS-OF-EUTAX-POLICY-RECOMMENDATIONS-KEY-TRENDSIN-EUROPEAN-TAXATION/ 19

All our yesterdays JEREMY BURROWS TAKES A LOOK BACK THROUGH THE PAGES OF QUARTERLY RECORD, THE MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION OF INSPECTORS OF TAXES.

1816: FROM THE LOOKS OF THE FURNITURE WE SUSPECT YOU MAY BE EARNING A BIT MORE THAN £100 A YEAR.

DECEMBER 1904 Quarterly Record No. 1, dated December 1904, included a column headed “Gleanings”, which included the following snippets relating to taxation in 1816 – now 200 years ago. It would appear from the second entry that the “lifestyle examination” has been a part of our investigation work for a very long time indeed!

20

In 1816 the yield of the income tax under the different schedules was: Schedule A, £5,500,000; B, £2,000,000; C, £3,800,000; D, £2,800,000; E, £1,000,000 Surveyors who have to investigate ‘48’s from residential districts may be interested in a reference found in a pamphlet published in 1816 entitled, Resist or be Ruined. It is therein stated that the Commissioners question

the appellant on the following lines to elicit whether or not he has an income of £100 a year.

“Have you no more than £100 a year? We notice that you have a good house; your furniture bespeaks wealth; your children are well clothed, and you have such a number of servants. How can you support all this if you have not at least £100 a year?” arcnews

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QUARTERLY RECORD ARCHIVES

100 YEARS AGO: APRIL 1916 The Quarterly Record for April 1916 contains the following news of A. V. Hunt, a Surveyor of Taxes whom we last saw fighting in Gallipoli and confident that the allied forces would shortly be in Constantinople.

FROM A PRISONER OF WAR. The following is an extract from a letter written by Mr AV Hunt, now a Surveyor attached to Head Office, whose pen was also responsible for a previous letter published in the Record: CONSTANTINOPLE, NOVEMBER 5, 1915 “I don’t suppose you knew we had reached the far-famed Stamboul, did you? Well, some of us have managed it – through taking the wrong turning! I went astray on July 13. Was unavoidably left on the field when a retirement was ordered, a bullet having passed through my right leg a little above the ankle. I tried to crawl back to our lines after dark, but lost the direction, with the result that you now perceive. I have received very good treatment from the moment of capture; was in the hospital at Rodosto three months and came here three weeks ago; am now in a ward full of Britishers and Frenchmen. We are visited daily by some German ladies who bring us all necessary comforts and some luxuries, and an Austrian sister helps the sick and helpless, so we are comfortable enough. My wound is a small one, but it is slow to heal, chiefly, I think, owing to the shin-bone being splintered. However, it has long since ceased to give me any trouble and I can walk about with ease, so all’s well. Have been having a lot of excellent practice in speaking French, and am learning a little Turkish. Am hoping to be discharged from here shortly and to get to the open-air life of the camp, or whatever it is, at Angora. Letters from home do not seem arcnews

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to come through very well … I hope those I write are more successful.”

In a subsequent postcard dated January 16, 1916, Mr Hunt writes: “Did you get the letter I wrote some time ago? Was captured six months yesterday. Am still in hospital, but quite OK; small wound in leg takes a long time healing, that’s all. Am very comfortable.

We had a merry Xmas, thanks to good friends here and at home.”

50 YEARS AGO: JULY 1966 It contains an account of the 1966 Annual Dinner, which begins as follows.

A week earlier than usual, on account of the fixing of Whitsuntide, that is on Friday, 20 May, the Criterion again opened its now Orwellian electronically controlled glass doors, its carpets, its chandeliers – indeed, the whole of its rococo attractions – to the AIT and its guests.

The pre-dinner hospitality was enlivened, or confused, by the presence of BBCTV cameras which caught the VIPs and their hosts in somewhat stiffish postures of conviviality or conversation. The shots are probably buried somewhere in the vaults of Broadcasting House; at any rate no more was seen of them. Still it was a noble effort to try and get the Annual Dinner on the little screen. The public might have been relieved to see some members of the Inland Revenue in black ties and dinner jackets instead of mariner’s blue.

By 6.30pm the diners had taken their places, the hosts had ushered their guests into their seats, and all stood respectfully to receive the principal guest, John Diamond, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, escorted in by the President.

The apprehensive looks on the

face of the new Dinner Secretary, John Pearce (it was no easy task to succeed Tony Batcheler), began perceptibly to fade as the dinner got under way. The menu was excellent and so were the wines and service. (I found on my menu card: Le jambon, le truite Et le poulet etaient fins; Aussi le peche et Aussi les vins.

And if that isn’t inspiration, I don’t know what is!)

It would be particularly interesting to know whether the BBC footage of this event still survives; but the odds are obviously heavily against it. Possibly even longer than the odds against Leicester winning the Premier League at the beginning of the 2015-16 football season.

25 YEARS AGO: SEPT 1991 The “Competitions” section contained the following notice, which appears to contain an unfortunate triple negative where a double (or quadruple) negative was what was actually required to convey the writer’s meaning.

COMPETITION NUMBER 36: Entrants were asked to identify the origin and meaning of 60 acronyms in departmental use.

Disappointingly there were no entries, despite the condition that the nearest correct entry would win if there were no fully completed one. So anyone who had been able to correctly identify, say, DMY, ICAEW and LPA could have won. It is inconceivable that there isn’t an Inspector somewhere who doesn’t know what at least a few of the acronyms meant, so the lack of interest in the competition must be attributed to a healthy dislike of them.

Anyone with an unhealthy desire to know the answers can send a SAE to the Editor at HMIT City 18.

21

VICKY JOHNSON (AND A MEMBER) DISCUSS THE ISSUE OF DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNION AND OTHER ASPECTS OF DIVERSITY.

Membership outside the tax profession VICKY JOHNSON

A

today Please get in touch if this issue reasonates with you. arcnews@arcunion.org.uk, or comment on the article online at arcunion.org.uk/arcnews84 22

ARC President

t Civil Service Live the FDA General Secretary had a long conversation with an ARC member who wanted to remain within the FDA but leave ARC. As an employee of HMRC this was not an option and so, to retain the benefits of union membership, she remains a member of ARC. Her reasons for feeling like this were centred around the imbalance of the membership – that ARC had too many tax professionals.

I know that this is something that has vexed ARC as a union for some time as we need to appeal to all our potential members. We have only just over 50% coverage and while I am told the main reason people do not join a union is that they haven’t been asked, I am fairly sure there are others who don’t know about ARC or who don’t think they are entitled to join.

I emailed the member concerned, acknowledged that she was expressing fears that Committee had discussed and asked them if they had any suggestions on how we could improve. I mentioned that we did have vacancies on Committee and that we would welcome her joining to increase the number of non-tax professionals on it. I also, some days later, asked if she would like to write a piece

about it for the Information ARC. (Paula put me fairly and squarely in my place on that one – apparently Information ARC is only for Committee to tell you what we’re doing – I wasn’t on Committee when it started so I didn’t know!)

But the member did respond and I’ve have replicated her response below: Given my concerns about ARC I thought it only fair to write a very quick piece picking out where I see some discrimination. I think the statement below on those that ‘won’t get involved’ is a case in point – if it does not feel relevant, then why would you?

I don’t know when your deadlines are or whether you feel this is appropriate. I have tried to make it firm but fair. I don’t want to annoy your Tax Professional members but I also don’t like their monopoly of the union.

An organisation is only as strong as its weakest link or the sum of its parts. Either statement is true of a trade union and both are true of a union which has its greatest strength focussed on only half its potential membership.

ARC has in membership a majority of HMRC tax professionals and a fair spread of lawyers and economists but very few operational delivery or policy specialists. ARC Committee and ARC publications reflect this. That is not attractive to the 50% of ARC potential members like me. In recent times, work with ‘FDAlearn’ has been what I have engaged with – and that is very much focused on a far wider all-encompassing FDA. If ARC wants to retain and recruit operational/policy people, the usual call to ‘get involved arcnews

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MEMBERSHIP

yourself if you don’t like it’ won’t work.

Just as with ‘Remain’ – the issue is not members/potential members who ‘don’t understand’ or ‘won’t get involved’. If ARC is to persuade folk like me to ‘remain’ you need to consider ‘what works’ (maybe looking at the FDAlearn model) and then act. HMRC is all about customer needs and digital now, there must be better ways to engage the whole membership!

I find myself frustrated that the reason I remain a member is for support if anything goes wrong. It is a welcome safety net, but for the subs I expect more.

I hope the vast majority of the ARC membership base recognise the value of the operational, policy and other professions. Every role in HMRC is essentially a compliance role, and within the framework of Promote, Prevent, Respond, we are all working to deliver the same end but in different ways. We need a union that can cater/appeal and feel relevant to all.

I confess now, I was really quite irritated when I first read this because, of course, I had asked her for help in my email and so on first reading I took it as a criticism of my response. Then I realised that I hadn’t actually used the phrase ‘if you don’t like it’ and I had spoken about all the generic issues we are facing at the moment. So after further thought I wondered exactly what it might have been that has caused such a strong reaction from one person – and I wondered just how many more people might be thinking exactly the same way.

It’s all very well working on the diversity of the union in terms of protected characteristics but we should also consider the diversity of careers offered within HMRC. With me as President, Paula as Deputy, Zohra as arcnews

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I FIND MYSELF FRUSTRATED THAT THE REASON I REMAIN A MEMBER IS FOR SUPPORT IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG. IT IS A WELCOME SAFETY NET, BUT FOR THE SUBS I EXPECT MORE.

National Officer and eight women on Committee ARC is doing quite well on the one front (though there is always room for improvement, and we only have one BAME Committee member).

In terms of professions we are definitely heavy with tax professionals, but does that result in discrimination?

My answer would be no, the make up of the membership does not result in discrimination because a lot of the issues we deal with are generic – pay, terms and conditions, travel and subsistence, to name three and, at the moment, the BOF location work. But to prove this we need to work on attracting our non-tax professional colleagues into ARC to join us. At the last count there were over twenty professions within HMRC. I tried to list them, then thought, actually, I don’t need to because, whatever our profession, we are all working towards the same aim, that noble purpose that we talk about: collecting the right amount of tax so that the nation can function.

Which means, of course, that the final paragraph of our colleague’s article is absolutely right and every role in HMRC is essentially a compliance role.

I could now, of course, over-simplify things by saying that every profession within HMRC could be termed to be within the ‘tax profession’ because that is what the department is primarily about. I don’t want to do that – I am quite happy to recognise each individual profession and ask them what we, as a union, can do to encourage them to join. The larger our membership coverage, the better platform we have

to improve things. If I can improve recruitment, I can improve casework, negotiation, regional representatives, in fact everything, because I can fish from a bigger pool.

Of course the first sentence of the member’s response is also right, an organisation is only as strong as its weakest link. I’d like to think we don’t have a weakest link, so here’s my challenge to you.

Does what our member has written resonate with you? If it does how do we make it different, how do we recruit members from all professions and, while we’re doing that, how do we reach out to those we already have? • From the editor: As I mentioned in my editorial, I am passionate about making arcnews as representative as it can be, and including contribution from and for different professions. This edition has an article by a member (Big Fat Diet Wars on page 8) and I am happy to consider contributions from other members. If you would like to contribute about professional matters or otherwise, please get in touch with me by email (arcnews@ arcunion.org.uk).

I know that not everyone may want to directly contribute, so if you would simply like to see more stories relevant to your profession or interests, you can also make suggestions and I’ll see who I can nag to write them. This should come as no surprise, but I often have to nag people to write things for me. This is as much a case of knowing who to approach, and as I’m in the tax profession myself, that does make a difference as to my awareness of matters of interest. I will do my best to ensure arcnews is representative of our membership, but I’m happy to be prodded into the right direction.

23

HELEN BAIRD-PARKER GIVES THE LATEST ON THE FIRST TRIBUNAL HEARING ON ARC’S LONG-RUNNING EQUAL PAY CASE.

Equal Pay cases – we fight on HELEN BAIRDPARKER

WE HAVE LODGED AN APPEAL WITH THE EMPLOYMENT APPEALS TRIBUNAL, SO IT IS NOT THE END OF THE ROAD FOR US YET. WE REMAIN FIRMLY OF THE VIEW THAT THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHALLENGES WE HAVE EVER MADE FOR OUR MEMBERS.

24

A

ARC Equality and Diversity Officer

s we reported in ARC Members update 21 and on the website, we received the decision in the preliminary hearing of our equal pay cases at the end of June. Disappointingly, we were not successful. However, we have lodged an appeal with the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT), so it is not the end of the road for us yet.

We remain firmly of the view that this is one of the most important challenges we have ever made for our members. We know that you value this work, and that you want us to fight our antiquated and unfair pay system using all the means at our disposal. Our pay system is not only unfair, but it’s unequal in that it tends to reward men at Grade 6 and 7 more highly than it does women. And so we will fight on while we still consider that we have an argument to make.

There are two key areas where we will be challenging the reasoning of the Employment Tribunal (ET). They are: »» How a claim for indirect discrimination is founded. Here the law is in a state of flux, and there are two cases going to the Supreme Court in November – Naeem and Essop, which will be influential for our claim. Indirect discrimination is already a bit tricky, and

those cases complicate things rather more.

»» What the statistics are telling us, how we

analyse them, and how we say that the clustering in the pay scale demonstrates that women are, in general, at a disadvantage.

Claims for indirect discrimination These arguments can always get a little bit mind bending, and so bear with me. The original premise is quite easy to understand – that you can have a provision, criterion or practice (“PCP”) that on the face of it has a purpose, but that puts one group at a disadvantage compared to another group. The example often cited is a height threshold. The police used to require officers to be six feet tall. This put people of certain ethnicities at a disadvantage, as they tended not to be as tall.

It is possible to justify indirect discrimination if it is a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim. That means that the PCP has an objective aim, and that it does not unduly disadvantage people in achieving it. For example, Royal Mail can legitimately require a postman to have sufficient mobility to be able to complete his round. This means that certain mobility impaired people won’t be able to do the job, but on balance, this is reasonable, provided that Royal Mail doesn’t go further than what is needed, by, for example, requiring that their call centre workers are not mobility impaired. That would not be legitimate or proportionate. In the end, the Police decided that the benefits of having big policemen did not outweigh the loss to the police force in not having a representative force of people from all backgrounds, and arcnews

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EQUAL PAY

they changed this PCP. However, imagine if there’s no such clear rule – it can be hard to even identify that there’s a PCP at all, before you move onto the next step of establishing that it’s having a disparate impact. How do you know what’s causing a disparity? What if both things are slippery and difficult to identify, such as pay awards which fluctuate and a workforce which has changed over time for a variety of reasons?

In our equal pay cases, we were arguing about whether length of service is such a PCP. There’s lots of case law on this point – it’s not a novel one. HMRC sought to argue that you can’t compare people with different length of service, but that you can only compare men and women with identical length of service. The ET came down firmly on our side on this one: “It would be a arcnews

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somewhat absurd state of affairs if any woman’s complaint of indirect discrimination based on a length of service criterion could be met with the answer, “You can bring such a claim, but only based on a comparison with men who have the same length of service as you”. Self-evidently, if that limitation was valid, it would be impossible to test the assertion that the criterion had a discriminatory effect.”

But we still have the problem of showing that our pay system, which rewards differently from year to year, and substantially less in recent years than in earlier years (when there were more men who got to the max quickly) is a PCP which disproportionately disadvantages women. HMRC say length of service is a proportionate way of achieving the legitimate aim of rewarding experience. But how can it be

when the stated aim of rewarding experience only rewards some people’s experience but has ceased to reward others’? For our claimants who all have objectively long service, but are still at the bottom of the pay range with no prospect of moving up, when their comparators have already been on the max for some time, it’s a bit of a hollow argument.

This is where the Naeem and Essop decisions come into the picture. They muddy an already murky area. Naeem was a case about a Muslim Prison Chaplain.

He and all other Muslim Chaplains are paid less than Christian Chaplains, because the Prison Service didn’t employ any Muslim Chaplains until 2002. Less service equals fewer pay progression awards (yes, they still have those!). Usually, having established the difference in pay, it would then be for the

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NAEEM WAS A CASE ABOUT A MUSLIM PRISON CHAPLAIN. HE AND ALL OTHER MUSLIM CHAPLAINS ARE PAID LESS THAN CHRISTIAN CHAPLAINS, BECAUSE THE PRISON SERVICE DIDN’T EMPLOY ANY MUSLIM CHAPLAINS UNTIL 2002.

employer to explain why, given the disparate impact on their staff, their pay system is justifiable as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

However, that’s not what the Court of Appeal decided in Naeem. Underhill J said that, whilst he accepted that Muslim Chaplains were at a disadvantage compared to their Christian colleagues, it wasn’t the claimants’ religion which was the “material cause” because their pay was nothing peculiar to them being Muslims. It was because the Prison Service had no need for them before 2002. In Essop the reasoning was similar – that it was not just the fact of the disadvantage, but why the person is disadvantaged, and the why must be connected to the characteristic, in more than a merely statistical sense.

This looks a lot like direct discrimination: that you are paid less because you are Muslim specifically, or a woman (or whichever other protected characteristic) rather than that you happen to be on the receiving end of a pay system which rewards some people more than you.

You’ll note the similarity to our case.

We say that we don’t need to establish anything peculiarly woman-centric in the pay system. It’s enough that you are a woman and you’re disproportionately paid less, and that’s because 26

women joined G6 and G7 in greater numbers later on, for historic reasons, like in Naeem. Unlike Naeem, it’s for societal reasons, and not because HMRC had no need to employ us. However, the Naeem thinking has undoubtedly been influential in the Tribunal judge’s reasoning in our case, and so we have requested that our appeal be stayed, pending the outcome of the Supreme Court cases in November. If the Supreme Court finds strongly that the “why” doesn’t matter, then this would support our position.

Statistics Unfortunately, the ET really didn’t like our expert very much. This is massively disappointing because she’s an extremely experienced HR professional with a background in statistical equal pay analysis. Our lawyers have used her successfully in other cases.

However, the ET firmly preferred the statistician from the ONS, and so there we are.

There’s actually no argument of fact between the parties. The facts are as they are. But there’s a lot of dispute about what they show. We think that the ET has misdirected itself in its analysis, and so this is another ground of challenge. What we think is lacking in the analysis is the rooting in the actual pay of the individual

claimants and their comparators. The ET decision doesn’t express our claims as we have put them. We’re not just talking about clustering in the abstract as though a different spread throughout the pay system is the result we are seeking in itself. We’re talking about why this woman is paid £50k and this man is paid £55k for doing identical work. The man has been paid £55k for the last 8 years, since he reached the max after being in grade for seven years. In contrast the woman has been paid about £50k for the last 10 years. They’re both likely to remain on approximately their current rates until they retire; his pay protected, her experience never rewarded. What the clustering shows is the likelihood of being in either position, by gender, and that if you’re a woman you’re much more likely to be stuck at the bottom for the foreseeable future. We’re looking at the stats again carefully to ensure that our position is understood before the EAT. As ever, please get in touch if you think you could be affected, or if you have questions, queries or comments.

And please try not to be too disheartened by this bump in the bumpy road.

We always knew the journey would be a long one, and we’re fully prepared for it. • arcnews

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PMR

PMR IS REALLY NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE, SAYS JIM ROGERS.

It’s not you it’s me

I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO BE PERSONALLY UPSET ABOUT IT; IT HAS ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. THIS ARTICLE WILL TRY TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE IT TO HEART.

today arcunion.org.uk/rogers-pmr

arcnews

JIM ROGERS

S

ince the introduction of the targeted distribution PMR system, have you received a Must Improve marking? Well, we’re in our fourth year, so that must apply to an unfair proportion of us. If I were a betting man I would lay good money on the fact that you were so marked because “although you did really rather well on your outcomes, you needed improvement on your behaviours”. If you were stupid enough to agree to such a bet, I would have made an absolute killing.

I am here to tell you that you don’t need to be personally upset about it; it has almost nothing to do with you. This article will try to explain why you should not take it to heart.

This article is not pro PMR. I will prove that very quickly with the next paragraph. It is not an apologist piece for the managers who have to inflict it on their staff; although I feel very strongly that we should have genuine sympathy for them.

I wouldn’t want to do it. They are being asked to do the ridiculous and because of

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the behaviours bludgeon, they probably also have to pretend that they think it is brilliant. I’ll let you in on a secret – they don’t.

Here is a very brief summary about why I believe the current PMR system isn’t fit for purpose:

»» It wastes far too much time. That is particularly true for managers. Particularly for managers with only a few staff, where the time investment is absurdly disproportionate. »» It doesn’t achieve its stated aims. There is no evidence it drives up performance, quite the contrary. In fact, structurally, it acknowledges this, if it did drive up performance then every year the Must Improve targeted percentage should fall. »» It is nothing short of institutionalised bullying. In fact, it is worse than that, the evidence suggests the whole Civil Service will be facing a charge of indirect discrimination. The figures for the BAME community should make any right thinking person gasp. There is a very interesting paper, which makes these points better than I, by Steve French of Keele University. We have posted a copy on the new ARC website arcunion.org.uk/rogers-pmr (#shamelessplug). »» It discourages team work. »» The Department wants to create a continuous feedback culture. That feedback is only truly useful if it has suggested areas for improvement. People don’t send that sort of feedback because they are quite rightly worried that it will be pounced on

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by validation groups.

»» It refuses to acknowledge that some peo-

ple just want to get their head down and do the job. It turns those individuals into pariahs. It doesn’t turn them into the smiling doublespeak drivel merchant that the department seems determined to turn them into; it disenfranchises them. They start to perform worse; or they manage to perform the same but now miserably; or they leave. »» You end up being judged predominantly on the advocacy skills of your manager. »» If you get promoted, you can guarantee yourself worse terms and conditions and a Must Improve marking. Words fail me at how silly this is as policy for rewarding promotion. »» And we don’t like to be lied to. It is not a guided distribution, it is a targeted distribution. »» Oh… and the appeal system is a joke.

I don’t think people mind being judged on outcomes in theory, but unless you make widgets then it is difficult to see how you compare one person’s outcomes with another. This fear remains mostly unrealised because it is actually quite difficult to evidence. Hence my opening bet. So that only leaves behaviours.

28

I think this is structurally problematic because it smacks of “your face doesn’t fit”.

It is hard to evidence that someone’s work is problematic, particularly if it isn’t. It is easy to say, “They can be very negative in meetings”.

Even if they are negative in meetings, what if that negativity is exactly the right thing? It seems fundamentally to be judging them for the wrong thing. Short of genuinely unsanctionable behaviour; shouldn’t we be encouraging that diversity? Assume that everyone agrees that they do their job to perfection, but they are negative and critical in meetings. The Department’s own stated aim is to encourage such critique between peers but, if directed at messages disseminated downwards, it gets you a Must Improve marking. There is a blatant contradiction there. The current system of judging behaviours has created a climate of fear that is suppressing useful dialogue.

Wouldn’t a better system be to say that meetings weren’t compulsory and that you didn’t have to attend and wouldn’t be judged either way? Wouldn’t an even better system be to encourage them to come and try to be a bit less precious when they were critical and negative? If you’re their arcnews

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PMR

IF THE JOB GETS DONE, THEN CAN’T WE ALL JUST TOLERATE THE ANNOYINGLY GRUMPY AS WELL AS THE ANNOYINGLY BUBBLY? THERE IS NO TRAIT THAT ISN’T ANNOYING TO SOMEONE. I THINK THAT JUST SHOWS A LACK OF TOLERANCE.

leader and can’t adapt to their behaviours, what does that say about your behaviours?

Or are you just patronisingly assuming that everyone else is affected?

If the job gets done, then can’t we all just tolerate the annoyingly grumpy as well as the annoyingly bubbly? There is no trait that isn’t annoying to someone. I think that just shows a lack of tolerance.

So if you have been judged as Must Improve on behavioural grounds this is how I think you should view it:

»» They have already said you did a good job; that should have been where the discussion ended if the system weren’t silly. »» “I know I did a better job than Danny”.

Firstly, you don’t actually know that, but even if you did, they didn’t judge you on that because it is almost impossible. If you did do a better job than Danny, then it just demonstrates how the silly the system is. Be cross by all means but don’t take it personally. »» Managers are in the impossible position of having to find people that Must Improve, even if they don’t have any and with no meaningful way of judging who that might be, even if they did. But they have to find someone because it is targeted distribution. »» So they are now in the unhappy posi-

tion of looking for a negative behaviour.

Leave aside that is it easy to ‘evidence’ a negative behaviour but very difficult for you to evidence good behaviour in your

arcnews

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appraisal. They are in the position where they have to try to go to the validation group without their target or pin that target on something/anything, however undeserving. Either way, at validation they are now clutching at straws. Because there is a target, they will always find those straws. If your manager is cunning then the bullet misses you… but it always hits someone.

So there are only two possible interpretations; either those behavioural examples are spot on or, almost always, they are absolute toffee. Either way, I think you have been misjudged. You have done a good job; I think the Department has no right to ask any more of you than that.

So you should be proud of yourself, whilst remaining disappointed with a Department that has sought to undermine your mental wellbeing.

And please try not blame your manager because their position was untenable too. • EDITOR’S NOTE: PLEASE NOTE THE VIEWS IN THIS ARTICLE ARE ENTIRELY JIM’S, BUT IF YOU ARE HAVING ISSUES WITH PMR PLEASE LOOK AT THE MANY UPDATES AND VARIOUS GUIDANCE ARC HAS ISSUED. YOU CAN ALSO TALK TO YOUR LOCAL REPS, CLOS OR SPEAK TO A CASEWORKER IF YOU FEEL YOU NEED ASSISTANCE (JOHN PARKHOUSE AND DUNCAN GLEIG ARE THE CURRENT CASEWORK LEADS). ALL ARC’S ARTICLES ON PMR CAN BE FOUND AT ARCUNION.ORG.UK – CHOOSE TOPICS>PMR. 29

today

arcunion.org.uk/key-contacts/arc-committee/

Committee’s roles

This is the full ARC Committee for 2016-18 and their roles and responsibilities Business plan responsibilities will be added once roles have been allocated to the new committee. There is a fully searchable version of this on the website.

CONSULTATIONS, ARRANGEMENTS AND TEAMS

30

NAME

ROLE

CLO

Vicky Johnson

President

West Midlands, Gloucester, Bristol

Paula Houghton

Deputy President

100PS, Norfolk & Suffolk

Eugene Mitchell

Treasurer

Glasgow

Helen Baird-Parker

Officer

Legal & Governance, South West Wales

Loz Hutton

Officer

Hull & Leeds

Iain Campbell

Officer

Graham Flew

Officer

Cambridge

Julie Blayney

Officer

North East

David Cooper

Officer

Sheffield

Blair Gardner

Committee Member

Jim Rogers

Committee Member

South Coast, Canterbury

Amy Carr

Committee Member

Liverpool

Spencer Munn

Committee Member

London Euston Tower

Kenny Mitchell

Committee Member

Northern Ireland

Frances Hunter

Committee Member

London BCD

Michelle Wyer

Committee Member

Stratford, Brighton, Croydon

Andy Nixon

Committee Member

Edinburgh

Tony Wallace

Committee Member

Nottingham

Fahad Akhtar

Committee Member

Manchester

Ben Barnett

Committee Member

Nottingham

Josh Flew

Committee Member

Preston

Ashley Falla

Committee Member

Leicester

Heather Morrison

Committee Member

Oxon & Bucks, Reading

Zohra Francis

FDA national officer

Leake Street (FDA head office)

arcnews

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COMMITTEE

CONSULTATION /BUSINESS AREA(LEAD IN BOLD)

PORTFOLIO

BUSINESS PLAN

Tax Assurance Commissioner; Corporate Communications; CFO OD; Corporate Communications; CDIO – Lead; Internal Audit; Aspire; RCDTS; Commercial; Change & Transformation – Lead; C T & S – Lead

Strategic oversight; Organisation & Recruitment; Stakeholder Management; Terms & Conditions; External tax group; Pay; Equal pay; Ways of Working; Change; T & S; BOF

Regional Centre Lead

Chief People Officer – Lead; CPO Finance; CPO HR Policy & Operations; CDIO – HR; HR – Tax Assurance Commissioner; Change & Transformation – Lead

Stakeholder Management; Pay; Terms & Conditions; Ways of Working ; Information ARC; Terms & Conditions; T & S; BOF; Organisation & Recruitment; Attendance & Wellbeing; Health & Safety

Birmingham

Chief Finance Officer – Lead; Corporate Finance; Government Banking; CDIO – Finance; Commisioners Advisory Accountant

Treasurer; SCS

Croydon

SOLS – Lead ; SOLS – PT & Corporate Tax Services; Tax Litigation; SOLS – Business Tax; SOLS – Business change, caseworkers and cross cutting

Equal Pay; Diversity & Inclusion

Glasgow

Business Tax Lead; BT- Financial Performance & Change; BT – HR; BT Ops; CTIS

AGM/Dinner; WFM (BAU)

Cardiff

Customer Service (was PT) – Lead ; PT Finance; PT HR; CDIO-Security & Information; PTCPP

External Stakeholders

Leeds

Benefits and Credits – Lead; Universal Credit; B & C HR; B&C Operations; B&C Customer Strategy & Policy; Universal Credit; B&C Finance

Deputy Treasurer; Facilities Time; Procedures Sub Committee; Facilities Time; Casework

Specialist Sites

Enforcement & Compliance – Lead; WMSB – HNWU; FIS; EC Finance; EC HR; Trainees

arcnews; Website

Bristol

Enforcement & Compliance – Lead; Counter Avoidance; ISBC – SME

Website; AGM/Dinner

Newcastle

ISBC – Other

Website

Manchester

KAI; RIS; CTIS

WFM (BAU); ESS Transformation

SPT; Trainees

Members below G7

Tax Academy; SME

Training & Professionalism

WMSB – MSB

CPD

ESS – Other; Tax Free Childcare

Green Issues; WFM

Belfast

Large Business

External focus; Training and Professinionalism

Stratford

Debt Management

Organisation and Recruitment

Edinburgh

Liverpool

WMBC – APEC

Central Policy

Nottingham

WMSB – HNWU

PMR

Large Business

arcnews; Website arcnews; Website PMR

arcnews

AUG-SEP 2016: ISSUE 84

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