HMRC: Digital by Default The story so far and next steps Julian Hatt – Head of Customer Engagement Carroll Barnett – Agent Account Manager

HMRC: Digital by Default

The story so far and next steps

Julian Hatt – Head of Customer Engagement

Carroll Barnett – Agent Account Manager

• Digital by Default – Recap Julian 10 mins

• HMRC’s Digital Exemplars – Sneak Preview! Julian 20 mins

• ‘Hot Topics’ for Agents and HMRC Carroll 15 mins

• Questions and (if you’re lucky!) Answers All 15 mins

Running Order

Facts ‘n’ Figures

82%


28%


650

Digital by Default

• Digital services are so straightforward and convenient that all those who can use them will use them, whilst those who can’t will not be excluded

• ‘Revolution not Evolution’ (Martha Lane Fox’s 2010 report)

• Substantial investment in HMRC’s digital services: +£200m in Budget 2013

• External pressure (Office for Tax Simplification, Administrative Burdens Advisory Board, business, tax profession) to make things quicker, easier and simpler for SMEs

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http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/better-regulation/admin-burdens.htm

Digital Strategy

Supporting our Customer Centric Strategy

Shifting more contact to digital channels contributes significantly to each of HMRC’s strategic objectives.

It’s cheaper – self serve allows us to theoretically shift to a ‘frictionless’ relationship, or at least towards cheaper channels.

It’s better for customers – a true digital interaction is quicker, easier, and comparable with external experiences.

It drives revenue – digital by default services will allow us better to target interventions and manage risk on a transaction by transaction basis

Allows us to quickly target and segment – broadens our ability to deliver services by segment & influence behaviours (“nudge”)

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How are we doing it

• Focus is on user needs rather than traditional requirements

• Delivery is iterative (start small and grow) rather than agreeing all the detail upfront

• Regular user testing throughout to inform development and design

• Ongoing improvement and iteration of the service

• Delivered via more flexible design/delivery process – Agile


How are we doing it

10

Use

r Nee

ds

Speed of Delivery

Cost:B

enefit

The 4 Digital Exemplars

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Your Tax Account


Via their personalised

homepage small business users …

Can access all the help they

need via links to……tailored

education…

…and interactive tools

taking them straight to the

relevant information for

them

Can see an overview of their HMRC “account”… …with links

straight to action they

need to take……help finding

the right payment plan…

…and a personalised tax calendar

with digital alerts

Can get the answers to their questions quickly

and easily…as well as

receiving tailored outbound

communications from HMRC

…and receiving relevant key

messages from HMRC (and

potentially other Government

Departments) direct to their homepage

Can get direct access to all the

online transactions relevant to

them……without having to wade through content that isn’t relevant to them

What are we doing

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Your Tax Account Sequencing

• 750 volunteers participating in a Private Beta trial from 10 February

• Feedback mechanism in place

• Customer support model will also be evaluated during the trial

• Public Beta expected to begin in April 2014

• Dependent on results of private beta to test capacity and performance, etc.

• Phased ‘rollout’ – plans not yet finalised – lots of considerations

• Skin & Link’

• Continual development of the service – new features and functions

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Digital Self Assessment


Digital Self Assessment - Background

• Self Assessment is one of our flagship online services 80% of our customers choose to file online

Only 25% of customer self assessment journey takes place online

• We send customers letters at every stage of the process Despite filing with us online…

We use paper to tell customers the outcome of their filing!

• This is confusing and drives low-value contact at our contact centres

600k calls asking about repayments

183k letters asking about letters

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Agent Online Self-Serve [AOSS]

Agents – Setting the scene

• At least 8m customers use an agent to represent them

• Customers choose an agent for a variety of reasons

• The majority use an agent for profit taxes

• Customers look to agents to ensure they pay the right tax at the

right time

Our aim

Agents will be able to:

• Register with us digitally

• Notify us of clients digitally

• View clients’ data online

• Use digital services on behalf of clients

• More to come

Agents on the digital agenda

We have ambitious digital plans that mean we need to:

• Have a single view of agents and their clients – and recognise this relationship across tax regimes/services

• Reduce exposure to cyber crime by bogus agents

• Move agents away from using paper

• Enable an authorised agent to see and do digitally the same as their client

Identity Assurance [IdA]

• A pan-government project led by Cabinet Office

• A model for trust and security

• A process for providing individuals with credentials that allow them to prove that they are who they say they are (when online)

People perform different roles

• Individual managing their own tax affairs

• Responsible officer managing tax affairs of a limited company or partnership

• Employee managing the tax affairs of a business entity

• Self-employed (sole trader) agent managing the tax affairs of a client individual, limited company or partnership)

• Employee in an agent organisation managing the tax affairs of a client entity

• Friends and family (unpaid)

• Others

Authority Management Service

• A service which allows people to interact with government services on behalf of other people or organisations

IdA for Organisations and Agents

• A process providing online credentials for all levels of responsibility to prove permission is held to act on behalf of an organisation

• Discovery phase has been completed

‘Discovery’ for IdA - Users told us

• Solutions need to be easy and carry perceived benefits

• Personal and work identities need to be separate

• Large organisations will need scalable solutions

• Credentials need to be tied to the firm – not to employees

• Delegation needs to reflect the different roles and responsibilities within an organisation

• Do not create additional work for our customers

Delivering the new services

• Will depend upon Identity Assurance and Authority Management solutions for citizens, businesses and agents

• Authority management allows IDA credential holders to delegate permissions

• We are working closely with GDS to design a joined-up service between new digital services and IDA credentials.

• Next step – pilot initial working product (alpha)

• Aiming for private beta – Oct to Dec 2014

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Workstrands

• Friends & family agents delegation of authority to the friend or family member

• Organisations & agents in business more complex needs for delegating permissions in-house and to third parties

• Third party software most businesses and agents use in-house or third party products to govern access to services & customer records • Existing agent / client relationships we want to transfer these to the new services where we can find the least burdensome way to do this it will not be possible in all cases

PAYE for Employees


PAYE Online

• The first online service for 41 million individuals within PAYE

• 60 million calls, annually, to HMRC’s contact centres• 13.9m PAYE-related

• 4-5m of these are to query tax code

• 16% of these relate to car / van, fuel and medical benefits

• Costing customers £5 per call and HMRC £6 per call (longer calls)

• A Private Beta underway with changes to car / van benefits and bank interest

• Shift balance of the relationship away from the employer and on to HMRC

• Currently forecasting that PAYE calls will reduce by 1.7m [12%]

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Agent Account Manager Service

• 10,000 tax professionals are signed up for this service

• Over 2,500 client specific issues facilitated

• Top 5 issues

• Repayment delays – Ltd Companies / Self Assessment and PAYE

• 64-8

• UTR

• RTI

• Online services

Thank you

Julian Hatt

[email protected]

Carroll Barnett

[email protected]

Documents

HMRC: Digital by Default The story so far and next steps Julian Hatt – Head of Customer Engagement Carroll Barnett – Agent Account Manager