HMRC staff fired for racism over benefits Seven HMRC staff in Belfast have been fired for tampering with computer records to stop ethnic minorities receiving benefits. The sackings yesterday followed the resignation of two more tax administrators when an internal investigation was launched earlier this year. The nine men were accused of changing the tax records of …
""The vast majority of our people are entirely professional and one of the ways we support that professionalism is by taking decisive action against the tiny minority who let us all down by falling far short of those standards," said Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax."
If only the Police - the Met especially - would take this kind of attitude.
When "a few bad apples" do their stuff, the police all too often seem to respond to criticism defensively. They plead it's only "a few bad apples", even though the majority of "good apples" don't seem to do very much to stop the "few bad apples". (The case of Ian Tomlinson is a very visible example of this.) If, instead of closing ranks and defensively pleading collective innocence, they pro-actively singled out the "few bad apples" like they're supposed to, they might have a lot more public support and trust. But no, the police never seem to learn, no matter how many decades pass.
I wouldn't be surprised if they can't even tell the difference between Dave Hartnett's apparent pro-active intolerance of wrong-doing, and their own defensive pleas of "a few bad apples".
After almost 40 years working for HMRC, I've never come across anything like this. I knew someone sacked for theft from an office sports club, and knew of someone prosecuted for bogus repayments. About what you'd expect for any large employer.
No racism whatsoever, although I can't speak for Northern Ireland.
Not the first time in NI as I recall...Wasn't there a cohersion racket going on regarding VAT registrations as well....
There might be something going on more institutionalised up there....And then looking at McNeills comments on how we are treating Scotland, the Welsh wanting everything their own way anyway....I'm thinking we in England are better off just letting them all go their own way instead of propping up their economies if they want it all themselves...
Leave our poor relations to it...
Firing isn't an appropriate response here, being fired AND prosecuted for race hate crimes would be.
It's really quite astonishing that such small-minded people can be given responsibility like this. I do hope HMRC tighten up their interview and background check procedures.
"Do you hate blacks?"
"No."
"Muslims?"
"err... No. Well, I don't like the ones that attacked London. But apart from that, no."
"good answer- it was more reasoned than the reflexive, flat-out "no"s we get."
"Hey, thanks!"
"We just need to run a background check and we'll get back to you soon!"
*BACKGROUND CHECK*
*Member of any terrorist groups? No.
*Member of KKK? No.
*Committed Race Hate crimes? None showing up with a police check thing.
Yup, he's a great candidate. Bring him in!
One year later, we get this headline.
Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? What sort of background checks would you expect to have performed on you if you went for this job?
Even though I don't approve of "hate crimes" being on the book (too close to thought-crime for my taste), I fully approve of your sentiment. A creative prosecutor should be able to find something to charge them with (the only downside being that their defence would be on the taxpayer).
So, are we talking about them stitching up UK nationals with UK resident kids and a bit of a funny name?
Or are these cases of UK resident Johan Foreigner claiming UK child benefit for their foreign resident, foreign national kids? You know, while UK resident UK nationals are stopped from claiming child benefit if their UK national kids go abroad for more than 12 weeks? That situation?
Just because HMRC is pillorying these staff as racists doesn't make it so. They may just have one of those old fashioned things called a sense of fair play. It's a British thing, you might not understand.
... you are an idiot! (I was going to say tw*t but decided to be nice).
It makes no difference who these people were. If they were legally entitled to these benefits and were illegally denied them based purely on race - that is racism.
Please return to reading your Dail Mail and leave El Reg to us grown-ups.
Fail - for so many reasons
very reasonable and non-judgemental of you to make up a scenario in which racist scumbags are innocent victims.
If you had any idea how hard it is to dismiss people from government jobs you might reconsider your sympathy.
My guess would be these people are the tip of a very large iceberg. What makes them different is the evidence against them can't be hidden or ignored even by HMRC management
I take it you have hard evidence that the latter case happens. You know, it's a British thing ... (actually it isn't, just as having a sense of fair play isn't solely British either).
I'm tired of the Anglo-Saxon male whining about being an abused minority (and I'm an Anglo-Saxon male). Look at the statistics - we aren't!
This is soo sad. When I worked for HMRC we were bombarded with compulsory "diversity" courses & awareness events. I really wouldn't think anyone within HMRC would behave in this manner (or be so stupid as to think they wouldn't be caught).
And, Mr AC, HMRC mgt take extreme umbridge to any of their staff who are not 100% honest. Just because you may not like what they tell you (esp in relation to IR35), that doesn't justify the "nine bob bit" slur.
Much harder to discriminate when the adjudicator only has the facts of the case, not the fact that they are called Campbell/O'Campbell/Campbellowicz/Campbell-Patel. I think this should hold true not just of gov stuff like tax and benefits but college applications, jobs, the works.
(a) what were the perps motives?
(b) why did they change stuff and what did they hope to gain by changing stuff
(c) what pressures management, budget management, financial, ethical or otherwise were exerted upon the perps either formally (usually memo'd) or informally (usually spoken instruction by sly, crafty manager to make it happen without an audit trail)
A full, robust and public (pubic?) inquiry if you please!
In something like this the facts themselves are both sufficient and insufficient. To whom were the perps cow-towing to?
"Everyone affected has been reimbursed, HMRC said."
Sorry HMRC but reimbursed is not the word you are looking for here as you were not paying back or refunding any money.
On the matter of the sackings could HMRC say how many people were sacked for overpaying benefits to people? I'm almost willing to put money down that the answer is zero.
Why would an "ethnic minority" get more for child support?
OK, I admit I don't understand why *any* group should receive more than any other group, so I will probably be labelled a racist/sexist/whateverist. Actually, I'm the worse nightmare for any "minority" group; I believe in equality - I'm not better than you, and you aren't better than me, so why should we be treated differently?
It's not that the benefit levels vary according to ethnicity, they vary according to the level of tax and NI paid, and over how long. Change those figures, and you affect the level of benefits payable.
The article states fairly clearly that the scumbags were targeting people based on ethnicity and changing the details of tax/NI paid.
People dont (to the best of my knowledge) receive extra funding for coming from a different ethnic group. You may receive more or less based on your income but that has bugger all to do with race or ethnicity.
So it was probably something along the lines of reducing the child support for a family with two children so that they only got the money for one of the children not both...
So whilst your making a point about equality, the rules are already written to be as equal as possible and you just come across sounding like a condescending twat. Probably next time try to write with a little more balance...
@Dave Harris: Thanks. I had obviously misread/misunderstood the article.
@Iglethal: No, the rules *aren't* written to be as equal as possible. All over the Western World, there are rules on the books for no other purpose than to "redress" old wrongs done to minorities. I am all for making sure there are no discriminations, but why then allow "minorities" to discriminate against the "majority"? To whit: recently, there was a (successful) legal campaign here to force a Gentlemen's Club to open its doors to women (no, I did not ever belong to said club). However, all attempts at forcing women-only clubs to open their doors to men are dismissed. Why? Surely if we were *actually equal* neither gender-only clubs should be allowed to exist - or both should? But thanks to Government over-reaction (anyone here think *any* western government's reaction to 9/11 was not over the top?) we do not have equality yet. Say anything against a woman and you're sexist. Disagree with a black person and you're racist. Think the government is going over the top with anti-terror laws and you're pro-terrorism. Ditto with idiotic policies couched in "won't somebody think of the children" terms (which seems to be the latest modus-operandi to pass stupid laws which would otherwise be dismissed). And as soon as you're labelled, it doesn't matter how stupid the policies are or how good your arguments might be: it's dismissed as the ranting of a whatever-ist.
So no, I *don't* think we have equality and I don't think we'll have it any time soon. But I can hope.
I may indeed have been on the defensive after iglethal's reply. However, please see it from my point of view:
After I stated that there are a lot of laws still on the books whose sole purpose is to "positively discriminate" against minorities, you reply "the immediate insistence that a group which has clearly suffered from discrimination is now demanding preferential treatment is rarely indicative of proper perspective". Since I was pointing out those "preferential treatments", I took it as referring to my reply. When you followed with "In other words, it's the first thing a lot of bigots say after 'I'm not a bigot, but...'." the close association of these two paragraphs casts an implied statement that I, due to my view, am a bigot.
This may not have been your intent (if so, I apologise for over-reacting) but working for a news-site, you should be well aware of how easily implied comments can become "facts".
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