Corporate report

Northern Ireland Equality Scheme for HMRC: foreword

Updated 2 April 2024

At HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) we are committed to ensuring that the principles of equality and diversity are embedded throughout our organisation and in the way we serve our customers.

To help us to do this, we have a customer equality team doing important work giving advice and guidance on the best way we can provide services that are accessible and non-discriminatory for our customers. We also have a dedicated team that promotes equality and diversity throughout the department.

We want our workforce to reflect and understand the diversity of our customers and to use the collective experience of that diverse workforce to deliver a high quality service.

We have introduced a number of systems and processes that provide a better level of support for both our customers and our people. For example, HMRC introduced a Needs Enhanced Support (NES) service for customers who need extra help to get their taxes and entitlements right back in May 2014.

The service involves identifying those customers who need extra help and then offering them the support that suits them best, whether by phone or in person at a place convenient to them.

For both our customers and our people, we have developed a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy for 2016 to 2020, which is supported by an action plan, refreshed in February 2018. In the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Awards in 2017, our people won the Championing Disability Inclusion Award and Cabinet Secretary’s Inclusion Award.

We screen our developing policies to see what impact they might have on equality and conduct a thorough analysis, where appropriate, to inform our policy making.

As a public body, we are subject to certain statutory equality duties and section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (the Act) requires HMRC, in carrying out our functions relating to Northern Ireland, to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between people of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation, gender; people with a disability and people without; and people with dependants and people without.

The Act also requires us to have due regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between people of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group. (See section 1.1 of our Equality Scheme.)

That commitment to equality means that we must meet our responsibilities under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 by promoting equality of opportunity and good relations.

This equality scheme sets out how we aim to do this.

We will commit the appropriate resources in terms of people, time and money where reasonable and proportionate, to make sure that the equality scheme is implemented effectively.

We commit to having appropriate internal arrangements in place for maintaining compliance with the section 75 statutory duties and for monitoring and reviewing our progress.

Our communications will ensure that all our people and board members are made aware of our equality scheme and understand the commitments and obligations within it.

As a department, we realise the important role that the voluntary and community sector and the general public have to play to ensure the section 75 statutory duties are effectively implemented. Our equality scheme demonstrates how determined we are to ensure there are opportunities for people affected by our work, to positively influence how we carry out our functions. This includes providing the facility for people to make complaints if they consider there has been a failure on our part to comply with our equality scheme.

On behalf of HMRC and our people, we are pleased to support and endorse this equality scheme, which has been drawn up in accordance with section 75 and schedule 9 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and Equality Commission guidelines.

Jim Harra
Chief Executive and First Permanent Secretary of HMRC