How does HMRC continue operating like this?

[DanTheMan]

Not quite, you can't really make generalisations like that - remember that HMRC is much larger than just the part you are in, and roles vary. In large parts of the organisation an HO will be responsible for up to 100 staff - yet paid the same as a caseworker responsible for only themselves. There is a huge disparity in roles and responsibilities within the organisation, and with pay. There used to be progression through the pay bands, but that was scrapped years ago, leaving the situation where two people doing the exact same job are paid substantially different amounts.

A lot of the people doing the front line processing work, answering the phones etc are only paid slightly above minimum wage (and the lowest grade had to get an extra pay rise so they are paid the minumum wage) - I struggle to see how they could possibly have "forgotten how good they've got it".

There is absolutely disparity in roles within HMRC but the same applies in a lot of companies. I worked for RBS for 5 years prior to HMRC and it was just as bad, if not worse.

The only HO staff I know that manage anywhere near 100 staff are contact centre roles. Contact centre team leaders at RBS were paid around the same as a HO and had a hell of a lot more targets to meet and a lot more pressure placed on them from senior management.

I'm certainly not claiming that staff taking calls are paid massively but its no different to the private sector in most instances. I worked at Asda for 3 years and I was in charge of a team making sure everyone's home shopping was picked and in a van by 7am every day for £7.50 an hour. You'd never get that at HMRC

Nothing changes though. HMRC were underpaid 30 years ago when I worked there. My HO at the time who was in his 40s and had been working at HMRC for 20 years remarked his daughter had just left Uni and got her first job as a chemist and she was already matching his wages.

And they are (were) the ones who had to go up against high flying accountants in companies who were paid a fortune to get the lowest taxation for the company (legally and illegally).

Which is why a lot of HMRC staff saw the service as a stop gap/training service and moved to private sector after serving their term in the revenue.

I must admit the very short working hours (37.5 hours) plus flexi time where you could gain an extra 1.5 days holiday per month for the extra hours you worked and the generous pension scheme all made up for the poor salaries to a degree.,

You could start anytime between 8 and 10am and take lunch between 12 and 2 and finish between 4 and 6. I used to aim to work 40 hours per week to get my full extra 18 days holiday on top of my 29 days (you got the one day extra off in June/July every year to celebrate the Queens birthday) i got giving me me 47 days off per annum so more than 9 weeks per year.

And our office had a fully equipped gym and the recreational room had a darts board and table tennis table!

I presume all those nice benefits have gone though now?

I still have flexi time and can do any 7.5 hours between 7am-7pm. Anything over 7.5 gets given as flexi credit. I can have a maximum of 5 days flexi at any given time and the 'privelege day' extra holiday still exists.

We still have a table tennis table on our floor but I imagine a dart board wouldn't pass health and safety today!

There are definitely still reasons why people stay as civil servants for their whole career. Some of the benefits and priveleges of old have definitely been eroded but that's the case in most 'traditional' industries.

All the people I worked with in banking who had been there 20+ years would constantly moan about the lack of perks compared to yesteryear. My brother is a pharmacist and he constantly tells me things aren't like they used to be.

The police may have had significant pay rises but look at how their numbers have been slashed to accommodate that. Nurses aren't exactly happy at the moment either!

Exactly you have HO's in one HOD 2 grades lower than another HOD for the exact same job role.

So 2 people doing the exact same job just a different HOD and one is being paid £20k per year less.

Also when you haven't given a real terms wage rise in 20 years. It means the quality of the staff will inevitably decrease too.

So you now have an issue where there are a lot of people who are inexperienced and intuitive folk opting to work elsewhere for better pay.

Pay peanuts expect monkeys.

Again, I never claimed civil servants are paid extremely well and see above about disparities within pay grades, however its not unique to HMRC or the civil service as a whole. Plus, the benefits tend to be significantly better than similar private sector roles.

You must be an AA or AO, nobody saw anywhere near that amount in a single year.

I'm a HO currently. I started in March 2019 and my salary was £29652 on my contract. This then went up to £30880 as of September 2019 after the pay award. I can only go by that.

 

[chippie]

I had a 2% pay rise plus all pay bands were uplifted by 1.84% so a 3.84% in total since March 2019

I don't think you did - you may want to double check your figures. Everyone got min 1.84%. If you were on the minimum of the pay scale, you were uplifted by 2% instead rather than the 1.84%. It was either/or, not both.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

There is absolutely disparity in roles within HMRC but the same applies in a lot of companies. I worked for RBS for 5 years prior to HMRC and it was just as bad, if not worse.

The only HO staff I know that manage anywhere near 100 staff are contact centre roles. Contact centre team leaders at RBS were paid around the same as a HO and had a hell of a lot more targets to meet and a lot more pressure placed on them from senior management.

I'm certainly not claiming that staff taking calls are paid massively but its no different to the private sector in most instances. I worked at Asda for 3 years and I was in charge of a team making sure everyone's home shopping was picked and in a van by 7am every day for £7.50 an hour. You'd never get that at HMRC



I still have flexi time and can do any 7.5 hours between 7am-7pm. Anything over 7.5 gets given as flexi credit. I can have a maximum of 5 days flexi at any given time and the 'privelege day' extra holiday still exists.

We still have a table tennis table on our floor but I imagine a dart board wouldn't pass health and safety today!

There are definitely still reasons why people stay as civil servants for their whole career. Some of the benefits and priveleges of old have definitely been eroded but that's the case in most 'traditional' industries.

All the people I worked with in banking who had been there 20+ years would constantly moan about the lack of perks compared to yesteryear. My brother is a pharmacist and he constantly tells me things aren't like they used to be.

The police may have had significant pay rises but look at how their numbers have been slashed to accommodate that. Nurses aren't exactly happy at the moment either!



Again, I never claimed civil servants are paid extremely well and see above about disparities within pay grades, however its not unique to HMRC or the civil service as a whole. Plus, the benefits tend to be significantly better than similar private sector roles.



I'm a HO currently. I started in March 2019 and my salary was £29652 on my contract. This then went up to £30880 as of September 2019 after the pay award. I can only go by that.

See my post above.

HO over 12 years has had a 7.84% increase overall. 20% below inflation.

 

[chippie]

I'm a HO currently. I started in March 2019 and my salary was £29652 on my contract. This then went up to £30880 as of September 2019 after the pay award. I can only go by that.

Are you sure you didn't start in 2018? £29652 was the 17/18 HO minimum, uplifted to £30260 in August 2018 (was due 1 June 2018) as part of the 18/19 pay award, then uplifted to £30880 for the 19/20 pay award.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Are you sure you didn't start in 2018? £29652 was the 17/18 HO minimum, uplifted to £30260 in August 2018 (was due 1 June 2018) as part of the 18/19 pay award, then uplifted to £30880 for the 19/20 pay award.

Yeah it is which is why I divided his increase by 2 to show him in reality it was a massive real term decrease.

I have posted the HO average and overall since 2010 above there is no way he got nearly 4% in a single year.

HO
Increase since 2010 after a pay freeze is 7.84% or circa 0.87% per year

Thats a 7.84% increase since 2007 or 2008.

Average annual increase of 0.87% since 2010 much lower if you take the pay freeze into account and go back to 2007/2008.

CPI has increased 19% since 2010
RPI has increased 28.1% since 2010

You are talking up to 20% real terms wage decrease for a HO since 2010.

Add in the several years of pay freeze before that and its staggering the difference.

 

[DanTheMan]

Are you sure you didn't start in 2018? £29652 was the 17/18 HO minimum, uplifted to £30260 in August 2018 (was due 1 June 2018) as part of the 18/19 pay award, then uplifted to £30880 for the 19/20 pay award.

I definitely started in 2019. The recruitment process was massively drawn out though so I think I applied in 2018.

Yeah it is which is why I divided his increase by 2 to show him in reality it was a massive real term decrease.

I have posted the HO average and overall since 2010 above there is no way he got nearly 4% in a single year.

HO
Increase since 2010 after a pay freeze is 7.84% or circa 0.87% per year

Thats a 7.84% increase since 2007 or 2008.

Average annual increase of 0.87% since 2010 much lower if you take the pay freeze into account and go back to 2007/2008.

CPI has increased 19% since 2010
RPI has increased 28.1% since 2010

You are talking up to 20% real terms wage decrease for a HO since 2010.

Add in the several years of pay freeze before that and its staggering the difference.

I only stated that I'd had a pay rise. It wasn't stipulated that it had to be above inflation or that it applied to everyone in HMRC. In my time at HMRC, my pay has gone up at a rate pretty equivalent to RPI over the same period.

Do I expect that to continue? No, not at all. Am I fully aware that most civil servants have had pay freezes for the past decade and below inflation pay rises since? Absolutely.

You're original statements about pay and IT systems were pretty blunt and I was highlighting that they were misleading. I was by no means implying that the civil service is a beacon of fairness and equality as I'm fully aware that it isn't but its also nowhere near as bad as its reputation by both its employees and the wider public.

There must be some reason why so many civil servants stick around in apparently terrible working conditions.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I definitely started in 2019. The recruitment process was massively drawn out though so I think I applied in 2018.



I only stated that I'd had a pay rise. It wasn't stipulated that it had to be above inflation or that it applied to everyone in HMRC. In my time at HMRC, my pay has gone up at a rate pretty equivalent to RPI over the same period.

Do I expect that to continue? No, not at all. Am I fully aware that most civil servants have had pay freezes for the past decade and below inflation pay rises since? Absolutely.

You're original statements about pay and IT systems were pretty blunt and I was highlighting that they were misleading. I was by no means implying that the civil service is a beacon of fairness and equality as I'm fully aware that it isn't but its also nowhere near as bad as its reputation by both its employees and the wider public.

There must be some reason why so many civil servants stick around in apparently terrible working conditions.

Yet they don't stick around. They either move up or move on to get money.

Even across the different government sectors.

So you have people chasing a salary and people put into roles with zero experience or any real want to learn they just want their money and find the next best thing.

If it paid well people would stay in their roles longer.

 

[DanTheMan]

Yet they don't stick around. They either move up or move on to get money.

Even across the different government sectors.

So you have people chasing a salary and people put into roles with zero experience or any real want to learn they just want their money and find the next best thing.

If it paid well people would stay in their roles longer.

That applies absolutely everywhere I've ever worked and almost every industry has the same problem.

There aren't many roles out there nowadays where you can command the ideal salary and have excellent working conditions, unless its highly technical or quite niche.

 

[Surveyor]

That applies absolutely everywhere I've ever worked and almost every industry has the same problem.

There aren't many roles out there nowadays where you can command the ideal salary and have excellent working conditions, unless its highly technical or quite niche.

@Psycho Sonny will be back to tell you how wrong you are, how well paid he is and how his working conditions are beyond excellent.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Being self employed. You do your own hours and work.

You would be amazed at how much a sparky, plumber, joiner, alarm and cctv installer can make working for themselves with no company in between.

I know a window cleaner making £40k a year and he is thick as mince. And he's actually underpaid compared to the joiner I know making £100k+ a year specialising in shop fittings with several people underneath him. I know a roofer who owns his own roofing company who drives a lambo. His earnings are in the millions.

The key is not to work for someone else but be your own boss and specialise in something everyone needs rather than something everyone wants.

As in a self employed personal trainer will make peanuts. A self employed gas engineer will make a mint because you need your boiler fixed when it breaks you don't need to hire a pt when you get fat.