A winning letter

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. There’s many reasons, mostly work related; I’m always busy. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, it’s been 18 months since my last holiday – a two day break in bath. According to the beeb, I’m not alone. Must be ok then, I keep telling myself!

This month I won the prestigious “Winning letter” in Payroll World. It was my words, but I didn’t actually send a letter in. Payroll World read my blog for the content, and managed to put together a decent edit of my point. Plus, I win a bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne. When that baby arrives it’ll make for a pleasant start to the weekend (and a change from the usual Tesco special offer wine deals).

I’ve also been quoted in a followup article running in the same edition too. You should head over to the Payroll World Website to read it, but since they only keep content up for a few weeks I have reposted the article in which I am quoted here on my blog:

The winning letter

The followup article

There’s not much else left to add, except for an update relating to HM Revenue & Customs….

They’ve asked me to drop my case.

I have, in the interests of running my own businesses and doing right by my customers, agreed to “ignore” or “overlook” the previous issues. I’ve provided all the information to HM Revenue & Customs, who inform me that they have passed this information onwards and upwards up the chain of beauracy. I’m not an industry campaigner, and I have no grudge against HM Revenue & Customs. However, the government need to learn how to take better care of its customers, just like us private businesses have to take over ours.

The point still stands however

HM Revenue & Customs still use two different methods for online and offline verifications. Admittedly, an entire 10 consecutive days have passed with not a single customer bringing this issue up. Is it fixed or have customers just learnt to work around or ignore the problem?

Either way, I shall be putting my attentions onto working on great software – and according to the wishes of HM Revenue & Customs – ignoring the problems that have gone on to date. We plan to log all future enquiries relating to this problem, and we will judiciously report these to HM Revenue & Customs. The problem is, that investigating these issues takes time. Our customers need to spend resources – people and time – and so do we – a costly exercise – to provide HM Revenue & Customs with this diagnostic information. These costs should be borne by HM Revenue & Customs, not us, and certainly not our customers.

I don’t plan to write much more on this issue and everything has already been said. I had some exciting and interesting articles planned, but haven’t got around to writing them yet.

Let’s hope things get better before October 19th.