Corporate report

Voluntary report on disability, mental health and wellbeing 2021 to 2022

Updated 16 February 2023

Foreword  

At HMRC, we deliver policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country. After 2 years of delivering our purpose against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, we’re continuing our transformation to make HMRC a trusted, modern tax and customs department.

We are committed to making HMRC a great place to work: one where our colleagues will feel trusted, respected and confident in their role, working in modern, inclusive environments and using improved technology, data and processes.

Throughout 2021 to 2022, we continued to focus on our 5 priorities for making HMRC a great place to work:

• connection to purpose
• a great environment
• enabling colleagues to do their best work
• an attractive employment offer
• a continuous learning culture

As HMRC’s Wellbeing Champion, I am dedicated to prioritising colleague wellbeing by creating an environment where colleagues feel safe and included while at work. Through delivering our commitments within Our Charter and being an organisation that is inclusive, respectful and representative, we’re better supporting our people and our customers.

This report sets out the progress we have made over the last 12 months and additional measures we will deliver to better support our colleagues. We recognise there is more to do to sustain this focus and will continue to invest in mental health, wellbeing and disability inclusion for our colleagues and people who interact with HMRC.

Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC Wellbeing Champion and Director General Customer Services

Voluntary reporting on disability

HMRC uses the social model of disability. The social model looks at the position disabled people have in the workplace and focuses on removing the barriers which exclude (or disable) them from playing a full role and succeeding in their career.

We are continuing to work closely with our Executive Committee Disability Champion, Daljit Rehal, relevant teams and disabled colleagues to address ongoing issues identified in HMRC’s 2021 Disability Disparity Audit.

We have made fundamental changes to systems, policies, and processes. For example, we have now mainstreamed and reviewed our organisation-wide approach to workplace (reasonable) adjustments, commenced an accessibility remediation programme for over 200 IT systems, and implemented new recruitment practices. Other areas we focus on are culture and behavioural change.

We have leader status under the government accredited Disability Confident scheme. This means we are taking action organisationally to progress disability inclusion. We have also achieved ‘Visibly Better Recruiter’ status from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in recognition of HMRC’s achievements as an accessible and inclusive recruiter. We were awarded ‘Highly Commended Excellence in Disability Leadership’ in the inaugural Civil Service Commissioners’ Mark of Excellence Awards which showcased outstanding innovation and commitment in the recruitment of diverse candidates across all grades into the Civil Service.

Although we have made progress, we know there is much more to do, specifically to attract, and retain, many more disabled candidates and colleagues.

We’re working in line with the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion strategy (February 2022) in order to progress disability inclusion, and embed a long term and sustainable approach.

HMRC’s equality objectives 2020 to 2024

Our work is underpinned by our vision, values, strategic objectives and the HMRC Charter which together describe the type of organisation we want to be – one that treats customers and colleagues fairly and makes HMRC a great place to work.

In line with the Equality Act 2010, HMRC has equality objectives that apply to our customers and colleagues, and we are already reviewing our key priorities in advance of publishing new objectives in 2024.

We are transparent about our challenges. We publish an annual report on HMRC compliance with the public sector equality duty, and workforce information in our annual report and accounts. Developed to meet our statutory obligations under the Northern Ireland Disability Discrimination Act 1995, we have also published our Northern Ireland Disability Action Plan 2021 to 2024.

Accountability and governance

We continue to develop our frameworks to ensure consideration of equality throughout all our functions across the department and that includes continuously involving disabled colleagues in the design of our products, tools and services. In 2021 to 2022, our ExCom Disability Champion, Daljit Rehal, worked closely with multiple teams and staff networks to address many shared priorities – many of which stemmed from managing the return to the office after the pandemic. Our continued approach to equality impact also included furthering work on a large-scale initiative called ‘HMRC Change Governance Standards’, which is a digital tool that will provide all colleagues working on internal or external change support in robust equality impact assessment.

Process and policy improvement

We are committed to improving our services to encourage the participation of disabled customers we serve. This includes:

• improved signposting to further information, which lets people know how customers can find extra support on GOV.UK 

• training to help customer-facing colleagues identify customers who have additional needs 

• training sessions for colleagues across HMRC ensuring they are aware of their equality obligations, including all underpinning legislation 

• monitoring customer complaints and using the analysis and information to improve customer service for disabled customers

We have also delivered various actions to improve recruitment and diversify our workforce. We now publicise opportunities through diversity focussed job boards and have improved specialist guidance on how disability matters in our recruitment process and types of support and adjustments available. Our recruitment campaigns now better utilise videos and personal stories from our disabled colleagues, and we continued outreach activity throughout the pandemic such as at virtual events and careers fairs. We achieved the ‘Visibly Better Recruiter’ status from the RNIB which recognises HMRC’s achievements as an accessible and inclusive recruiter. We continued sponsoring individuals through the Government Employment Life Chances Programmes, including schemes for neurodivergent jobseekers, increasing the numbers of recruits through these schemes for the 4th year running.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presented opportunities for supporting disabled colleagues in ways which might be mainstreamed in the longer term. We continue to work with managers and leaders to ensure they have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to create inclusive working environments, including our physical estate, so that all colleagues are easily able to benefit from inclusive policies, and access flexible working arrangements and adjustments.

Providing inclusive workplaces has been central to the transformation of our estate, and in shifting the organisation to a flexible, hybrid working model. During 2022 we set up a new team in our Estates and Location Programme to drive this work forward, working closely with staff networks and consultation groups.

Our workplace adjustments (reasonable adjustments) policy and practices help us attract and retain disabled colleagues and create a workplace environment in which all colleagues are enabled to perform to their full potential. We have conducted an internal review of our approach and recommendations are being used alongside Cabinet Office guidance and recommendations from the Civil Service Disability Champions Group to improve our offer for colleagues. Our Expert Advice Service now supports over 700 staff each quarter to put adjustments in place.

IT Accessibility remains a priority. Launched in 2021 to 2022 the HMRC Internal Service Accessibility Review is a long-term and large-scale project to improve the accessibility of over 200 legacy IT systems. This will be complemented in 2022 to 2023 by our Assistive Technology Innovation Project to drive forward our assistive technology ambitions, which include ideas colleagues across HMRC put forward at a Dragon’s Den style event in this last year.

Our Respect at Work programme is helping us create a more inclusive workplace, particularly for our disabled colleagues. In January 2022, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the raising and resolving concerns policy that we had launched in February 2020, and are working to take forward tangible recommendations.

Learning and development

We’ve made efforts to continue developing our learning offer. We launched our interactive scenario-based learning titled ‘Choose Your Own Path’ during 2020 to 2021 which is promoted to current colleagues and new joiners. By the end of 2021 to 2022, over 37,000 colleagues had completed the training.

In 2021 to 2022, we focused on the virtual delivery of our Accelerated Development Programmes. To help increase the representation of disabled colleagues on our talent programmes, we ran ‘Programme Information Sessions’ to try and boost the diversity of colleagues applying for these programmes, including specific sessions aimed at disabled colleagues.

To further support accelerated development, we encouraged disabled colleagues to participate in the Civil Service DELTA programme, which aims to accelerate development towards senior positions across the Civil Service, to build a more diverse senior pipeline. In addition to talent schemes for colleagues, HMRC participated in the Civil Service Summer Diversity and Autism Exchange Internship Programme.

We know we have more work to do to engage disabled colleagues in these programmes and will continue to focus on that as a future action.

Communicating our inclusive culture

We work collaboratively with cross-government disability networks, and our colleagues routinely contribute to cross Civil Service events and communication campaigns.

We have an active departmental Disability Network for all colleagues. The Network provides HMRC with insight from their members, acting as a critical friend and working collaboratively with the corporate Equality Diversity and Inclusion team and others to drive improvements and help HMRC meet its strategic objectives. There are several sub-groups within the Disability Staff Network: these include groups for those with Deaf and Hearing impairments, the Sight Impaired Group for Help and Technology (SIGHT), the Speech Recognition Group, and our National Neurodiversity Network.

The launch of our national neurodiversity network in February 2022 has allowed us to significantly raise the profile of neurodiversity across HMRC. The network has brought together leaders of neurodiversity activity across HMRC to coordinate and rationalise activity on awareness-raising, identifying best practice and peer to peer support.

Throughout 2021 to 2022, we embedded dedicated awareness campaigns within our corporate communications calendar. To maintain visibility, we prioritised disability inclusion in our activity to support National Inclusion Week 2022, and actively celebrated International Day for People with Disabilities (IDPD). We regularly post personal stories, blogs, vlogs, and podcasts on various internal platforms, to raise awareness of disabilities, and how our colleagues can be better supported.

Data

We publish full equality information in our annual report of HMRC compliance with the public sector equality duties. We also publish workforce information in our annual report and accounts and information on equal pay in our gender pay gap reports. We want our workforce to reflect the diversity of our customers and the communities we serve.

To understand the diversity of our workforce across the business we ask colleagues to voluntarily self-report their equality characteristics through our online HR system. We continue to work to increase our diversity declaration rates so that we can accurately identify the scope, size, and place-based nature of our challenges.

In 2021 to 2022, we continued publishing quarterly diversity data packs (fully anonymised) on our intranet, accessible to all staff, which gives information about the workforce by region, directorate, job grade and diversity characteristic. The diversity tool is being enhanced for 2022 to 2023.

At the end of the last full quarter (Q4 2021 to 22), data shows that for disabled colleagues: Declaration rates increased by over 7 percentage points in the last year to 72% whilst still remaining below the 85% target. Declaration rates include colleagues that selected the ‘choose not to declare’ option.

Voluntary reporting on mental health and wellbeing

Wellbeing is an integral part of our plans to make HMRC a great place to work and is embedded in our approach to equality, diversity and inclusion.

We have continued to work to the standards outlined in the Thriving at Work report (The Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers, 2017), the Mental Health at Work Commitment (2019) and implement recommendations from the Mind Workplace Wellbeing Index Survey 2020 to 2021. Our Wellbeing Matters intranet site brings together all wellbeing support, services, tools and learning to provide easy access to sources of help and advice.

All colleagues have access to a range of in-house support including Health, Safety and Wellbeing Advisers, HR Expert Advice Service and Mental Health Advocates. There is also professional clinical and practical advice and support available from our Occupational Health (OH) and Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) providers. Colleagues can access psychological support from our EAP including a 24/7 helpline, structured short-term counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and interactive digital health and wellbeing support via an app.

During the last 12 months we continued to monitor and respond to the impact that COVID-19 and the changing working environment had on our colleague’s mental health and wellbeing. We worked with our internal and external stakeholders, including our third-party health and wellbeing providers, to develop and deliver new or enhanced support services, accounting for the diversity of colleagues and their experiences, recognising that each of us access and use support in different ways.

Our activity included:

• supporting colleagues to return to the workplace and our new hybrid office-working arrangements through discussion toolkits, return plans and clinical support

• continuing to expand our regional centres across the UK for colleagues to work together to collaborate, learn together and be part of an active regional community - we worked with our EAP provider to install Wellbeing Kiosk machines in the dedicated wellbeing rooms for colleagues to take physical health checks such as blood pressure, weight and body mass index

• as part of HMRC’s Pay and Contract Reform, implementing new working arrangements so we can respond better to the needs of our customers and give colleagues more flexibility to balance their work and personal commitments

• our new ‘Becoming a Parent’ policy introduces gender neutral language and increases the amount of leave colleagues can take to support their partners during pregnancy and after the birth of the baby

• updating our Stress Tool to help teams to identify the causes of workplace stressors and collaboratively develop an action plan to address the issues and help reduce pressures

• a flu immunisation programme through a voucher scheme via our OH provider for colleagues not eligible for the free NHS vaccination

• new HR neurodiversity guidance and dedicated support from OH via a Workplace Needs Assessment and screening specialists to help colleagues and managers to identify workplace adjustments

• working in partnership with The Charity for Civil Servants, continuing to raise awareness of the support they offer to all current, former and retired civil servants and providing insight about what matters to our colleagues, to help the Charity better respond and support civil servants in the future

• through our wellbeing and inclusion plans, we are continuing to build confidence and trust among colleagues to talk about mental health and access support - we launched our ‘This is Me’ campaign sharing colleague’s personal stories and mental health and wellbeing hints and tips

• participating in Civil Service Active Wellbeing Week 2022 to encourage colleagues to make small positive changes to raise activity levels - our Wellbeing Champion, Myrtle Lloyd was the senior sponsor for the campaign

• delivery of health and wellbeing education and awareness programmes through a suite of workshops and online wellbeing courses from our EAP and virtual broadcasts from our OH provider. Topics included building a positive culture, mental health, stress and resilience, neurodiversity, menopause, fatigue and living with a long-term condition

• together with our EAP, co-creating bespoke workshops and delivering support for business areas, colleague diversity networks, HR Expert Advice Service advisers, and support for colleagues in customer facing telephony roles

• training additional Mental Health Advocates (MHAs), increasing the number of colleagues trained to 296 at November 2021, providing timely and topical upskilling sessions to make sure our MHAs were well-equipped with information to support and signpost colleagues

• supporting our MHAs, mental health network groups and wellbeing advocates to run health and wellbeing campaigns and activity throughout the year to encourage conversations on mental health and participate in regional wellbeing events

Health and wellbeing data

In HMRC we have a range of metrics in place to measure workplace wellbeing. These include People Survey indicators including Office for National Statistics (ONS), PERMA (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishments) and Stress Proxy.

Personal wellbeing 

We measure personal wellbeing through the annual Civil Service People Survey using the same four questions used by the ONS to monitor wellbeing across the UK, as part of their Measuring National Wellbeing Programme.

The questions relate to 3 positive wellbeing measures – how satisfied people are with their life, whether they feel they have meaning and purpose (things they do are worthwhile) and how happy they felt during a particular period, along with one negative measure – how anxious they felt during a particular period.

Between 2020 and 2021 wellbeing levels in HMRC improved with no change to the proportion of colleagues rating their anxiety as high.

Question	2021 %	2020 %
Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?	64	57
Overall, to what extent do you think the things you do in your life are worthwhile?	68	64
Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?	60	55
Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?	35	35
(Proportion of respondents who said they experienced low or very low levels of anxiety)	(46)	(44)

Proxy Stress index

The Proxy Stress index uses Civil Service People Survey questions to align to the Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards to give a measure of the conditions which can contribute to (or reduce) stressful environments in the workplace. Factors include workload, control over how work is done, support and relationships and how change is managed. The higher the index score represents a more stressful environment.

PERMA index

We use a PERMA index to measure the extent to which HMRC colleagues are flourishing in the workplace. This index combines measures of Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, sense of Meaning and sense of Accomplishment. The higher the index score represents higher levels of flourishing and engagement.

Year	Proxy % – The higher the score represents a more stressful environment	PERMA % – The higher the score represents higher levels of flourishing
2021	27	72
2020	29	72

Over the next 12 months our work will include:

• refreshing our mental health and wellbeing strategies

• supporting colleagues with their financial wellbeing

• the transition to a new intranet platform making it streamlined and easier for colleagues to find the right information

• further progressing the Mind recommendations

• providing more targeted wellbeing support, using a risk approach, and levering third-party specialist health contracts to provide solutions