Consultation on reduction and consolidation of HMRC statistics publications
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Detail of outcome
Background
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) releases over 70 official statistics publications each year covering a wide range of tax-related topics. Some of the publications are released several times a year.
In 2020, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published a report, Strengthening the quality of HMRC official statistics, in which it recommended that HMRC takes action to improve the quality of its official statistics. The OSR recommended that ‘[HMRC] should review its current publications, with a view to reducing the number or size of publications, to ensure analytical resource is being used effectively’.
HMRC reviewed its suite of statistics publications and identified reductions that could be made, involving 25 publications. This involved stopping the production and publication of some statistical releases, and changing the scope of others. In accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, HMRC published a public consultation on the proposed changes on 8 February 2021. The consultation closed on 12 March 2021. HMRC actively approached known users of its statistics to encourage responses, to ensure a wide range of views were received, for example it
- contacted registered users of our statistics series
- contacted heads of profession for statistics in key other government departments
- promoted the consultation in HMRC’s stakeholders’ digest and MPs’ digest
- promoted the consultation internally within HMRC
HMRC is grateful for the engagement of stakeholders in this consultation. We received nearly 30 responses to the consultation from a range of statistics users. HMRC has taken account of responses from statistics users and made a number of changes to its plans. Overall, this means that HMRC will not reduce its statistical publications as much as proposed in the consultation document.
Feedback summary and HMRC’s consultation response
HMRC received responses from a number of government departments, a non-departmental government body, devolved administrations, academic bodies, thinktanks, tax representative bodies, lobby groups and local government.
HMRC has adapted its plans in the light of comments. The key areas of feedback are set out for each topic area together with the changes to be made to each publication in the consultation.
HMRC also received suggestions for expanding existing series (e.g. coronavirus support scheme statistics) and these comments will be considered as part of ongoing statistics development activity for those series.
As set out in this response, HMRC will continue to engage with users on plans for development of individual statistics publications.
Detailed feedback and HMRC’s responses can be found in the attachment.
Summary of changes
The following table summarises plans for all the publications for which changes were proposed.
| Publication | Changes to be made | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Personal wealth statistics | We will discontinue this publication | 2021 |
| Income Tax receipts | We will discontinue this publication | 2021 |
| Tax structure and parameter statistics | We will continue to publish these statistics, incorporated into the Income Tax liabilities statistics publication | 2022 onwards |
| The separate commentary document that accompanies the personal incomes statistics (regional analysis) | We will discontinue this publication (tables 3.12-3.15 will continue to be published) | 2021 |
| Income Tax liabilities statistics publication (removing forecasts) | No changes – we will continue to publish forecasts | |
| Child and Working Tax Credits statistics: small area data | We have provisional plans to reduce coverage and meet user needs through provision of a datafile | 2021 |
| Child and Working Tax Credits statistics: supplement on payments. | We will no longer produce the geographical supplementary tables but will continue to publish the main tables | 2021 onwards |
| Child and Working Tax Credits awards statistics (provisional awards and final awards) | We will jointly publish the two publications | 2022 onwards |
| Child and Working Tax Credits error and fraud statistics | We will merge the provisional and finalised awards publications into one | 2021 onwards |
| VAT statistics | We will discontinue this publication | The final publication will be in July 2021 |
| Flexible payments from pensions, annual pension contributions by contribution type and personal and stakeholder pension statistics | We will merge these publications into one consolidated pensions statistics publication | 2021 |
| Qualifying Registered Overseas Pension Schemes (QROPS) statistics | We will discontinue this publication | 2021 |
| Individual Savings Account (ISA) statistics and Help to Save statistics | We will merge these publications into one consolidated savings statistics publication | May 2021 |
| Aggregates Levy, Landfill Tax and Climate Change Levy and Carbon Price Floor | We will merge these publications into one consolidated environmental statistics publication | June 2021 |
| Air Passenger Duty statistics | We will reduce frequency of publication from biannual to annual | 2022 onwards |
| Hydrocarbon oils statistics | No changes – we will continue to publish these statistics on a quarterly basis | |
| Benefits in Kind statistics | We will explore provision of aggregate level Benefits in Kind statistics and a breakdown of car benefit statistics | 2022 |
| Charity Tax Relief statistics | We will reduce the number of years included in the publication | 2021 onwards |
| Government revenues from UK oil and gas production | We will cease publication of the detailed Petroleum Revenue Tax statistics | 2021 onwards |
Original consultation
Consultation description
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) needs to prioritise the resource we spend on statistical publications.
This consultation document explains our thoughts on how we can balance the growth in recent priority productions such as Real Time Information and COVID-19 statistics with our limited resources.
We need to understand how you use these statistics so that we can prioritise products which are important to our users. We look forward to receiving your comments.
Documents
Last updated 27 May 2021 + show all updates
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Added consultation outcome
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Added paragraph about 'Charity Tax Relief Statistics' to Section 2.4.
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First published.