Inland Revenue staff ‘treated as cost to be cut’
Low levels of staff engagement at Inland Revenue have caught the attention of Revenue Minister Stuart Nash.
The department said in its annual report that staff engagement was sitting at 29 per cent.
Inland Revenue was not immediately able to clarify how the figure was calculated.
But spokeswoman Gay Cavill said it was based on a survey in May of less than 250 of its workers. A new survey of its entire workforce was under way.
Nash said he had discussed the staff engagement with officials and knew managers were disappointed with the finding. But the department was undergoing a ‘‘sustained period of change’’ that created challenges which were reflected in the figure, he said.
Public Service Association national secretary Kerry Davies said there were problems at Inland Revenue and that boiled down to a shortage of staff.
That was undermining the department’s ability to provide the service taxpayers expected, she said. ‘‘Inland Revenue is going through an enormous transformation ... and we are concerned this is being achieved by stretching permanent staff thin and filling gaps either with lowpaid contractors or not at all.’’
In 2016, Inland Revenue announced plans to shed 1500 jobs, or about 25 per cent of its workforce, between 2018 and 2021 as it embarked on a $1.8 billion project to modernise and simplify the tax system. Its latest annual report showed staff numbers fell from 5720 in 2016 to 5009 at the end of June. When expressed in terms of ‘‘fulltime equivalent’’ workers, its head count shrank
Kerry Davies
Public Service Association
from 5622 to 4888 over the period.
With the exception of staff engagement, Inland Revenue was hitting all its top-level targets, according to its annual report.
Commissioner Naomi Fergusson said the business transformation project had resulted in $60 million in administrative savings, and had brought in $90m in extra revenue thanks to improved compliance.
Davies said staff would never feel properly engaged by a system that treated them ‘‘as a cost to be cut, rather than an asset to be invested in’’.
Inland Revenue’s contact centres were again rejecting some incoming calls yesterday afternoon, with wait times of more than 75 minutes on some other queries.
‘‘Inland Revenue is going through an enormous transformation.’’