HMRC confirms office closures

 HMRC confirms office closures

HMRC has confirmed it is to close 137 local offices and replace them with 13 regional centres, raising fears over job losses report Harris & Co chartered accountants Northampton. The closures will be complete by 2027, according to the Revenue, but the new centres will be open in the next five years. Towns and cities hosting the new offices include Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol and Croydon. “HMRC has too many expensive, isolated and outdated offices. This makes it difficult for us to collaborate, modernise our ways of working, and make the changes we need to transform our service to customers and clamp down further on the minority who try to cheat the system," said chief executive Lin Homer. The PCS Union warned that the plans “pose a significant threat to the operation of HMRC, its service to the public and the working lives of staff”. Frank Haskew, head of the ICAEW, said: “The cuts could stretch the taxman to breaking point.”

The Daily Telegraph (13/11/2015)