Board minutes - 13 September

13 September 2010

Members

Rt Hon Michael Jack – Chairman
John Whiting – Tax Director
Dave Hartnett – Board Member (HM Revenue & Customs)
Edward Troup – Board Member (HM Treasury)

Secretariat

Jeremy Sherwood
Tunde Ojetola

Invitees

Simon Pemble – (Interim Secretariat)

1. Welcome

The Chairman welcomed members to their first meeting and in so doing he recognised the considerable public and political interest that had already been shown in the OTS’s emerging agenda. He pointed out that this was the start of a long journey and that the public’s expectations about the work of the Office must be tempered by an appreciation of the size and complexity of the tasks that lay ahead together with the limits on the level of resources available to the OTS.

2. Service level agreement

The Board reviewed and agreed the service level agreement setting out the information technology systems, accommodation, human resources, finance and non-corporate services to be provided by HM Treasury to the Office of Tax Simplification.

3. Board & consultative committees – membership and terms of reference

The Board approved John Whiting’s proposal to set up separate consultative committees for each review rather than set up one overarching steering committee. The Board discussed the membership of the committees and delegated the task of finalising the list of members to the Tax Director. For the small business review, it would be important to seek a wider geographical spread of consultative members. This would be of particular importance to those areas with a high concentration of small businesses. The Board also recognised that the consultative committees would be strengthened by the appointment of an HM Revenue & Customs and an HM Treasury representative to each committee. The Board also agreed to consider expanding its own membership to include up to two additional members.

4. Plan for the year ahead

The Board considered the various milestones for the OTS reviews and noted that there was a lot of work to do in a short timeframe. It would be important to maintain momentum whilst managing expectations of interested parties. The Board considered the frequency of the Board meetings and agreed to hold the next meeting on 7th October 2010.

5. Two initial reviews

The Board discussed the two reviews which the OTS would initially focus on. HMRC had provided the OTS with an initial list of tax reliefs and exemptions, and the OTS was considering its approach to analysing this list. The small business review was also at the stage of information gathering, and John Whiting had already held meetings with some interested parties.

6. Board minutes

The Board decided to publish the minutes of its meetings on the OTS website.

7. OTS website

The Board discussed options for the OTS website, which is currently hosted by HM Treasury.

8. Staffing

The staffing of the OTS was progressing well, with three permanent civil servants and one external secondee appointed. John Whiting had been pleased with the level of interest for secondments from the private sector, and was following up a number of applications.

9. AOB

a. Meeting requests – The OTS had received a number of requests for meetings already. The Board decided that given its limited resources, the OTS should prioritise meetings linked to its two reviews rather than those looking at simplification more widely.

b. Correspondence policy – the Board considered alternative approaches to handling large volumes of correspondence. Given the small size of the office, this would have to be carefully managed.

c. Budget – the OTS Budget would be met by a transfer from existing HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs resources.