Hundreds of tax jobs facing axe

Hundreds of civil servant jobs in the North East are under threat in a Government shake-up of tax offices.

Around 1,500 revenue and customs jobs will go by 2010 in an attempt to cut costs, according to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU).

These include 900 in Sunderland, Durham and Newcastle; 300 on Teesside, and a further 300 in rural Northumberland.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said consultations on the service would begin in the region in February 2007.

Civil servants are not the tea-drinking, bowler-hatted, umbrella-wielding people that cartoons depict Tony Jarvis, Public and Commercial Services Union

HM Revenue and Customs is already more than half-way through a nationwide programme to cut 12,500 jobs by 2008.

The PCSU said it believes around a third of the HMRC's UK offices will close - totalling more than 200.

Tony Jarvis, regional secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: "If these jobs go the service will diminish quite considerably.

"Civil servants are not the tea-drinking, bowler-hatted, umbrella-wielding people that cartoons depict.

"We not only collect taxes, but are also the people who pay out tax credits to the low paid and most vulnerable in society.

'Cost efficiency'

"If local people cannot go to their local tax office there is going to be more paperwork going in and more telephone calls to call centres."

But Paul Gray, acting chairman of HMRC, said the service needed to be made more cost-effective.

He said: "We are taking the opportunity to save taxpayers' money by operating with fewer buildings in a more co-ordinated, cost efficient way.

"We are inviting all staff to comment on our proposals and to fully participate in our programme of change."