Tue, 14 Feb 2012

Transparency of HMRC’s RTI user group questioned after minutes remain private

HMRC has clarified that minutes are not publicly available from the powerful Real Time Information (RTI) user group whose meetings shape government policy on PAYE reform.

The Customer User Group (CUG) includes representatives of a number of different stakeholder groups including the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP), employers, agents, software providers and the banking industry.

An HMRC spokesman told Payroll World: “The purpose of the group is to work together to resolve concerns and to test out some of HMRC’s proposals. As such it is not appropriate to publish the minutes of the meetings.

“We do provide slides outlining the key topics discussed, which CUG members can share with their own representative groups.

“We will, however, consider formal publication of minutes for the future.”

Member benefit

Confusion has arisen over the availability of the minutes after the CIPP said it was making them available to its 5,000 members.

Kathryn Baldock, CIPP PR officer, said “The CIPP policy team represents CIPP members at these meetings and therefore the minutes of the meetings are only available to CIPP members. This is a membership benefit and is not available to non members.”

However, Matt Boyle, research assistant at PAYE lobby group, research4paye, raised concerns over the minutes being restricted to a small number of stakeholders. “I still don’t understand why the minutes of the RTI CUG meetings are not publicly available,” he said.

“This would allow non members to chart the opposition to the removal of the form P45 [for example], which has been lauded by HMRC as a big benefit of the RTI process.”

See also:

• HMRC does not understand how people are paid - controversial document reveals concerns over RTI
• RTI pilot to go live with ten employers instead of 300
• U-turn on P45: leaver statement reform scrapped for RTI launch