Speeches by Caliskan.

“May I ask some questions around staffing numbers? It is true, is it not, that, in recent years, the Department of Health and Social Care, and indeed NHS England, has seen a significant growth in terms of staffing? If you take, for instance, the Department, there are tens of new recruits every month. The very fact that …”

“In your view, the additional spend on digital infrastructure, for example, will allow the organisation to reduce the number of lower-paid staff to allow people to have contact via a digital service.”

“My final question is a broader one. What are your views on the potential for digital systems now and in the future to address cost pressures?”

“There are mitigations for each of those risks, I am assuming, and this is regularly monitored.”

“There have been comparable incidents in local authorities over the past few years, have there not? Cyber-attacks have meant that whole council tax systems have been wiped out and local authorities have been unable to collect council tax for years in some cases. I guess I am looking for some reassurance. I am sure there…”

“I have a final question on risk, which you mentioned earlier. I just want to understand this a bit better. When you talk about the risk that exists in the organisation in terms of digital capacity and capability, is that cyber-risk or is there a risk to the business, so to speak, in terms of not being able to collect t…”

“That is a really interesting answer. Just to slightly go back to my earlier questions around the £100 million spent on staff, a lot of the additional cost around compliance was spent on higher-paid staff. Compare that to the response you have just given, Sir Jim, around contact with the organisation, which is also a co…”

“Is it on technology? That is what I am asking for reassurance on.”

“About £785 million is spent on what the report refers to as the digital business group. That has increased by 18%. It is £122 million additional cost. I just want to get a sense of this. Is that cost on digital infrastructure spend or is some of that money spent on consultants, for example?”

“I want to ask a little more about the overall cost of the digital systems and why the higher spend has not lowered the overall cost of collecting taxes.”

“I note all the responses. The only thing I would say is, at a time when resources are scarce and the public is looking for more value for money, Government as a whole need to be doing more with less. I come from a local government background where, for a long time, senior officers have had to do more with less. It is h…”

“You do not feel that the organisation is too top-heavy.”

“Given that staffing costs have gone up and productivity has gone down, how can you reassure the Committee that you are delivering value for money when your important comparators, i.e. other Government Departments, are spending less on senior staff?”

“I would just like to ask about grade mix. The increase in seniority in HMRC’s workforce exceeded the increase in, for instance, the DWP’s workforce and the civil service as a whole. HMRC’s staff mix is 54% in the senior grades. That is much higher than, for instance, DWP’s, which is at 20%, and more than the civil serv…”

“It is not that 20% of the overall cost is spent on consultants giving you advice on how to deliver a digital service, for example. I ask this because there have been lots of examples in the past— perhaps not at HMRC but throughout public sector—where, when you dig deeper, you see that it is not all spent on infrastruct…”

“No, the point I am trying to make is, if you spent that money upstream as opposed to downstream, there is no question about value for money. The amount of money that is spent by HMRC is always less than the amount of return; therefore, there is always value for money. Would you be able to get even more if that £100 mil…”

“I wanted to ask about that because productivity has been a challenge. You have provided an answer in part around the delay of seeing the returns on the investment in compliance officers. I think that is how you referred to the work. Understanding whether you are getting value for money on the additional spend on staff …”

“You have spent an additional £100 million on staffing. Is that what those staff members are doing? Are they dealing with the upstream compliance or are they dealing with downstream compliance?”

“I will ask you about grading mix in a moment compared to other Government Departments. In terms of compliance and the more senior members of staff dealing with more complicated cases, as you put it, is there a focus on the upstream or the downstream? I am trying to get a sense on behalf of the Committee as to whether t…”

“Can I thank Sir Jim and his colleagues for joining the Committee today? I would like to go back to talking about the overall cost increase for HMRC, with a specific focus on staffing. I know, Sir Jim, you have already touched on some of that, but if I could just go back and probe a bit more, the overall cost has increa…”