Nov 2007 21

The HMRC Helpline (and what it tells us about government)1

HMRC have announced that any of the 25 million people whose personal and banking information has been lost or stolen can now phone 0845 302 1444 for information and advice about the "organisational failure" and how to protect themselves against any resulting risk of fraud or identity theft.

Given the gravity of the problem and the number of people affected, it has taken HMRC a remarkably long time since yesterday’s announcement to set this phone line up and start publicising it. If you consider that they’ve actually known about the data loss for more than 11 days now, it is another disgraceful delay in a story full of squandered time.

Worse is the fact that, having finally set up the number, Revenue and Customs have used an 0845 number which is not even free to call. Having caused 25 million people great anxiety (and it is still entirely possible that it will yet cost people money or their identities) the idea that those people will now have to pay to get advice on how to protect themselves is insulting. People are furious about this gross error – and the Government’s bungled handling of the issue is only going to make things worse.

This Agency messed up horrendously – their budget should be tapped for the resources to help put it right. HMRC should be paying for these phone calls, not the innocent victims of HMRC incompetence.

If we wanted to find some areas in the HMRC budget that could provide the funding, we could do worse than start by looking at the senior mangement. Eight HMRC senior staff members appeared in the TPA 2007 Public Sector Rich List at a total cost to the taxpayer of £1,212,350. Perhaps some room could be found in that sum to help finance a phone line?

If Government Departments knew that if they make errors, their budgets or bonuses will have to bear the costs of setting things right it would be a useful incentive to run things properly in the first place.

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  • Acorn

    You don’t need telling where this comes from, but, this extract just seems so appropriate at this time. The guy who wrote it (Thom, to his mates), went on to be a big hit in the colonies. Unfortunately, real leaders like him are not made anymore.
    “…The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
    He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
    He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them.
    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
    He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
    He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
    He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
    He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
    He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended legislation.
    For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
    For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
    For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
    For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
    For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
    For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
    For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
    For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally, the Forms of our Governments:
    For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:
    He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
    He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
    He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
    He has constrained our fellow Citizen taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
    He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
    In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people…”
    http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration.html