COG10000 - Compliance Operational Guidance: introduction

Compliance Operational Guidance (COG) provides HMRC staff with detailed processes and procedures for carrying out compliance checks. The COG consolidates information drawn from various existing sources into one guidance product.

COG sets out the department’s authoritative view of the correct processes for starting, conducting and completing compliance checks.

It provides staff working in compliance with up-to-date, consistent and current guidance in a process based format. It includes guidance to the relevant IT systems, for example, Caseflow and New Penalties Process System (NPPS). It also links to relevant penalties, compliance powers and technical guidance.

Because COG relates to the manner in which compliance checks are conducted, it does not include guidance for the work undertaken by Risk Intelligence Service (RIS) or Debt Management and Banking (DMB), but covers the processes, generally at the beginning and end of a compliance check that involve handovers from RIS and to DMB.

COG is an evolving product, built on the department’s operational policy and is owned and maintained by Compliance Operational Process and Systems  (COPS). You can contact COPS via the CPPG Mailbox.