19 April 2017

Public Accounts Committee Report - Concentrix

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published their report into HMRC’s contract with Concentrix, which resulted in customer service failures last year. The report, together with findings and recommendations, is available via the parliament UK website. The summary begins:-

‘HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) contracted with Concentrix in May 2014 to provide additional support to check for error and fraud in tax credits claims. Neither HMRC nor Concentrix are prepared to take full responsibility for the catastrophic failure of this contract. Both parties have different views as to the causes of the failure and look to blame each other. What is beyond doubt, however, is that between them they provided a totally inadequate service to claimants.... HMRC now accepts that the payment-by-results mechanism used in this contract was wholly wrong for this type of service. It does not intend to involve the private sector to conduct tax credits error and fraud checks in the future.’