Lesley Strathie

““Our staff are our greatest asset, and we need to be open and honest and really listen to their views on how we can succeed. Staff management is the most challenging task facing the civil service at present.””

““We feel deeply, deeply sorry for the distress that we have caused to many customers in bringing personal tax records up to date, and particularly vulnerable customers. I think one of the big groups in each of those years has been pensioners. We have been working through each of these years with ministers and seeking counsel on how we can ameliorate the impact of all of that.””

““Be glad for what you have, not sad for what you have not.””

““I think HMRC is quite disadvantaged because we don’t have a choice about who we serve. We have to serve 30 million taxpayers and that’s what makes us different from private businesses.””

“"We serve everybody. We don't have a choice about who we serve."”

““The key big building blocks for this include the reconciliation exercise that we are going through at the moment, which was well covered in the media, where we have many more people getting refunds of tax overpaid than we have, demonstrating a commitment to fairness alongside enforcement.””

““HMRC and I personally regret any anxiety that customers have suffered, and I will come to each of the points that you have made in terms of how many people have the right code and paid the right amount of tax in the totality of the system.””