argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): No. I really must make some progress—you may not indulge me too much more, Mr Speaker, if I give way again—but I will see whether I can take further interventions later As hon. Members should be aware, anyone who wishes to challenge any changes made to their tax credits has a right to request a mandatory reconsideration of their case. As of the start of this week, HMRC had received more than 26,000 such requests. Staff have already reviewed and resolved more than three quarters of them, and they are up to date with the Concentrix reviews. As I have said, that means that the cases have been resolved in accordance with the facts; it does not necessarily mean that there was a problem in each case. However, at least such cases have been resolved, and closing the remaining cases will of course be a priority That gives the House a sense of the necessary steps being taken to fix the immediate problem: restoring quality customer service, resolving people’s claims and checking that the right decisions have been made. But I know that hon. Members have been worried about people falling into hardship if their claim has been incorrectly withdrawn or reduced due to errors. That has quite rightly been the source of many of the questions we have been asked. I reassure Members that a system is in place to support anyone who contacts HMRC in such circumstances. They will be helped to request a review of the decision taken—the so-called mandatory reconsideration that I have just mentioned. Those in hardship will then receive a payment of £100, normally on the following day, while their review is being handled.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very difficult for me to comment on a specific case, but if the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details I will ask HMRC to comment on it. We held a further drop-in on 19 October, and if the House feels it would be useful to hold another such Member drop-in for cases such as that to be resolved face to face, I am very happy to arrange one. If hon. Members are aware of people in hardship—I know many are—they can bring that directly to our attention. In fact, I am grateful to all those Members who have already taken action of that kind and attended the various drop-in sessions I have organised in the House. I remind everyone that there is a special hotline for MPs to raise issues and seek information, and we have allocated extra staff to make that service available over extended opening hours. We will address any such cases with the greatest of urgency We are making some progress towards at least putting an end to the distress and worry that some people have regrettably faced in recent times. Mechanisms are in place to make sure that anyone in hardship as a result of uncertainties or mistakes will be supported. Those two things have been our top priorities.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): Not just at the moment—I must make some progress Particular individuals in particular circumstances are more prone to error. Over the years that tax credits have been running quite a substantial picture has built up of where error is more likely to exist.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: International Affairs
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): I will take some interventions, but before I do I must say that, as the House would expect, while those commercial discussions are ongoing I cannot provide full details of the negotiated early exit; however, I expect it to be finalised shortly.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): I also welcome the statement that we are terminating the contract with Concentrix. That is absolutely the right thing to do. I have a number of constituents who have suffered these problems. Mr and Mrs Young from Malton provided evidence that they were married. Despite that, Mrs Young was identified as unmarried and living in Whitby on her own. Members of Parliament have the emergency hotline—I have used it—and people can get emergency hardship payments. Does the Minister welcome that and should we make it more publicly known that those measures are available for people in hardship?
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, those are matters I will return to, in part because there will be a number of examinations of this situation—the National Audit Office has already talked about the work it will do. I will come on to that.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black). I welcome the debate, and the opportunity that it gives us to talk about the issues involved in the Concentrix contract, although it is worth noting that it is a month since our exchanges in the House about the Government’s intention to cancel it I believe that our goal should be to ensure that the people who pay for the benefits system through their taxes can be confident that fraud and error are kept to a minimum. However, that went badly wrong in this instance, and examples in my constituency reveal some of the places where it went wrong. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South gave us the interesting example of a "philandering shop" in Scotland. In my constituency, someone had supposedly moved in with a bloke living down the road. They rang Concentrix to try to deal with the matter and get some answers, but found that it was quicker to walk to my office with the phone—while still on hold—and sit there for about 20 minutes while we made them a cup of tea and enjoyed the "hold" music that they were listening to. To prove that this had happened, I took a photo of the phone as it went through the hour on hold in my office To be fair to Concentrix, it did only take four minutes to tell my constituent "Actually, you should ring HMRC", but that was the only part of the customer service that was particularly speedy. The only other remarkable thing is that, given the level of concern and the number of issues that have been raised by Members and others, Concentrix was itself surprised to be told that the contract would not be renewed.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): The focus should be on what went wrong, waiting to see what the National Audit Office comes up with—I shall say more about that shortly—observing the reaction to that and dealing with the issues, rather than getting into a debate about whether the gesture of an apology should be made. That said, I am pleased that the Government are not seeking to nit-pick the Opposition motion, that we are not going to divide the House, and that, effectively, we will support the motion. That, I think, speaks for itself In the light of the problems that had been raised with me, I welcomed the Government’s action in making it very clear that the contract would not be renewed. It is over a month since the last new case was sent to Concentrix. I am also pleased that HMRC is moving in to resolve many of the issues.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the hon. Lady give it a moment? I shall make some more progress, for now I said that HMRC was moving in. It should be noted that that organisation has had its own customer service issues in the past. In fact, in the next half hour my fellow members of the Public Accounts Committee will be discussing and examining its customer service. There have been some welcome improvements recently, but many Members who are present today will have had their own experiences of sitting and waiting to get through to the "hotline".
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): This afternoon we received a fairly detailed report produced by the National Audit Office on HMRC’s annual report, which is being discussed by the Public Accounts Committee and which goes into some depth about HMRC’s performance and customer service standards. It can be read in comparison with what we have heard about Concentrix. The PAC is also discussing the tax gap, and the need to ensure that HMRC is performing as we would expect it to in ensuring that the taxes for which we legislate in the House are paid by those who are required to pay them. I genuinely welcome the fact that the National Audit Office will be investigating this matter, and, in that context, I think that some of the comments that have been made today may have been slightly premature I was going to intervene on the shadow Minister when she was commenting on our having an independent and fearless inquiry commissioned by the Government. I was struggling to think how more independent and fearless an inquiry could be than a report by the NAO, which is an arm of this Parliament, not of Government. It produces its reports independently. Yes, it will liaise with Treasury officials to ensure that facts are agreed when coming to its conclusions, but ultimately the Comptroller and Auditor General and his team answer to this House via the PAC. It has never held back from making comments, no matter how difficult and challenging for Government Departments, where required. The shadow Minister might wish to intervene and tell us how she felt that another inquiry would be different from that, but I think the right way forward is to get the NAO to look at this and bring a report that can be scrutinised fully and in depth in this House from a team of subject experts who understand how HMRC, the DWP and the benefits system work, and who owe a duty to Parliament, not to the Government. I am sure the depth of information they bring forward will inform future debates on this subject.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the HMRC report being discussed this afternoon by the PAC; it might be worth his attending the session if he gets the chance. It is worth noting that with new leadership, which has been needed for some time, HMRC is starting to turn around its customer service, by moving more staff into dealing with post, for example. There is some evidence that the customer service is improving, therefore, which is welcome, although I know that some of these assertions will be robustly tested by a number of Members, including the hon. Gentleman’s party colleague and PAC member the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell) It is vital that the investigation is full and that we look at what comes out of it. I welcome the Minister’s saying that there is an ongoing negotiation about concluding the contract early. We cannot go into the details of that today for obvious reasons, but I hope the work being done to bring this whole sorry tale to an end will be shared with the NAO as part of its inquiry One of the conclusions to be drawn is that it is clear that people have been caused pain and suffering that they should not have been caused. People have been subjected to allegations that were flagrantly untrue: the "philandering shop"; the person living down the road; someone who has been dead for some years. We should think about the way the contractor went about things—sending letters with the contractor’s logo that looked very similar to official Government or HMRC letters. We might have debates about whether in future the symbol of the Crown and HMRC should be used on a letter sent by a contractor.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that point, but the evidence from my constituency case load is that it cut both ways. Some people saw a logo that looked like it was from HMRC and wondered what the letter was about. This matter might require further inquiry, and we should consider the information that the NAO will bring forward. The NAO does not just look at the sums. It is not just going to work out how many people got paid for what. It will also go into the detail around the customer service, and certainly in previous reports it has been extremely thorough when doing so. I welcome the overall tone of the Minister’s response to this motion, and I welcome the fact that the Government took clear and decisive action to bring this contract to an end and are continuing to do that and to prevent more people from having to experience the issues many Members have highlighted today. I hope the monitoring will go on because, as we have seen with past issues to do with HMRC, an in-house solution is not necessarily a magic bullet to achieving amazing customer service. We have only to look at past debates on HMRC’s performance to see that. I welcome some of the tone of today’s debate, but it is now absolutely clear that we need to resolve the outstanding cases, let the NAO do its work and then form our conclusions based on the evidence it brings to us.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady agree that the National Audit Office is independent and works for this Parliament, not for the Government? Therefore, the NAO would structure how it conducted its inquiry, not necessarily a Minister. That is the core of what we want: somebody independent who will get to the nub of this and present evidence to this Parliament, not necessarily the Government.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the shadow Minister agree that, given earlier comments, it is important that the National Audit Office leads the investigation into what happened, because it is independent and answers, ultimately, to this House, not to the Government?
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Kirby (Conservative, Centre-right): This has been a thoughtful debate. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and efforts to support their constituents. It is right and appropriate that I thank MPs’ staff, who have worked hard to help constituents with their tax credit claims It is clear—there is no doubt—that mistakes were made in HMRC’s partnership with Concentrix. As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said, it is right that we take action to stop errors and fraud in the tax credit system. That was why HMRC entered into a contract with Concentrix to support that action, which—let us be clear about this—delivered millions of pounds of savings and achieved close to the lowest level of fraud and error in the tax credit system since it began I reiterate that this is all about people. It is about making sure that the most vulnerable people are paid appropriately and that errors are not made. It is often very difficult for the most vulnerable people to deal with overpayments.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): Given the number of people affected, what work will the Government—the Treasury, working with HMRC—carry out to help local advice centres that, like Members of Parliament, may be approached by people for advice about what to do if they receive such letters?
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Kirby (Conservative, Centre-right): Some of the information used was very poor—some of it applied to people who no longer lived at the address—but, at the end of the day, the review will provide lessons for us all to learn The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South said that the evidence was flimsy. HMRC sent Concentrix cases to review if it thought that they were worth checking because there was an indication that the tax credits claim might be incorrect. Concentrix and HMRC will never be able to screen out all cases that do not involve error or fraud through data analytics alone. That is why—this point is important—HMRC and Concentrix write to customers to ask for more evidence to inform decisions The hon. Lady asked for an apology. At a sitting of the Work and Pensions Committee on 13 October, the chief executive of HMRC apologised for the worry and distress caused to claimants. On behalf of the Government, I echo that apology today The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said that she thought that the letters were unconvincing and misleading. This is an area in which there are lessons to be learned. It was said that customers could not provide the evidence requested. Most people were able to provide the information asked for, but we want to make it easier and cheaper to supply information in the future, so we are looking at ways of improving the customer journey on tax credits.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Kirby (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not—I have to respond to a lot of people I recognise that sensitivity is needed on tax credit claims and that claimants should be treated with dignity and respect. The hon. Lady also asked about penalties. The figures that will and have been deducted from payments, and the detailed calculations, cannot be disclosed at this point as they are commercially sensitive, but the amounts will be fair and appropriate The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) said that Concentrix was getting a rap on the knuckles. I point out that it is actually losing the contract My hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Gloucester (Richard Graham) made particularly thoughtful and considered contributions. They have obviously given the matter great thought. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Corri Wilson) asked whether the contract was ended only because of poor call handling. That was not the case. The poor call handling had an impact on customers and resulted directly in tax credits being stopped. She also mentioned the downsizing of HMRC. An extra £800 million has been announced for HMRC. Using a private company in this way offered a cost-effective method of reaching a large number of people The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) asked whether this situation spelled the end for outsourcing. This is about cutting down on errors and some fraud, but HMRC will evaluate each case on its merits to deliver value for money for the taxpayer. It is fair to say that the lessons learned from this situation will help to inform future contracts.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Kirby (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not commit to that. The hon. Lady’s points will be picked up by the NAO. Not all the information was duff, but there are clearly lessons to learn from the exercise The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) talked about the 30-day cut-off. Tax credit regulations require a claimant to be given a minimum of 30 days to respond to a request for information. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) mentioned training. I assure him that Concentrix staff are trained in the same way as HMRC staff The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) asked about unresolved cases. I am not sure whether the Financial Secretary was in the Chamber to hear that, but if the hon. Lady writes to my hon. Friend, she will, I am sure, do her very best to help to resolve those cases. The hon. Lady also asked about the significance of August. August was a particularly busy time.
Concentrix — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon Kirby (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to commit to look carefully at that matter and to get back to the hon. Gentleman I clarify that hardship payments are effectively tax credits brought forward. Compensation, however, is not offset against tax credits and is a separate payment. That is an important distinction to make The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) mentioned the timeline. It is important to understand the timeline, and she makes valuable points about how we can ease the customer journey and introduce new measures. That is work in progress, and I do not think there is a lot of disagreement about some of her more sensible suggestions In response to the hon. Member for Bootle, I would say that a lot of issues have been raised in the debate. They will be looked at very carefully by the National Audit Office. We are giving careful consideration to the balance of the contract with Concentrix to make sure that nothing else goes wrong. This is about making sure that the most vulnerable people who need help get it, and that we move forward and learn from the exercise Although we recognise that the service provided was simply not good enough, it was right to review people’s claims for tax credits. That must go hand in hand with quality customer service that minimises distress and disruption to the people involved. Concentrix fell short of providing that standard of service in recent times, and, as a result, a large number of people were caused undue distress and worry. We have taken immediate action to restore a fast, fair and efficient service to anyone claiming tax credits. We will take further action in the days and months ahead. We will look at what went wrong, and at the NAO report, and learn from those lessons. We want to ensure that we provide the kind of quality tax and benefits service that the British public deserve Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House notes that Concentrix has not fully met the performance standards set out in its contract with the HM Revenue and Customs to correct tax credit claims, and welcomes the announcement that the services performed by Concentrix will be brought back in-house to HMRC next year; and calls on the Government to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the performance of Concentrix under its contract with HMRC, which includes a consideration of the potential effect on other HMRC services, take urgent action to compensate people who have erroneously had tax credits withdrawn by the company, and in doing so mitigate any adverse effect or reduction in service for claimants.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: International Affairs
Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (Conservative, Centre-right): The Yemen data project, which looked at the numbers, pointed out that the identification of the targets as civilian or otherwise referred to their original use. No further assessment was made of the time of the airstrike or the circumstances that led to it. We must try to be very careful with the use of data.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2016-10-26
Topic: International Affairs
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for giving way. Will she explain her proposal to the thousands of people across the country who support our allies in the region? Does it mean, for example, that she is in favour of suspending all spares for the aircraft operated by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the other members of the coalition? Does it mean that she wants to withdraw the advice given by skilled British employees that helps our Saudi friends? If that is what she means, she is doing great damage to the British national interest.