HMRC, the UK’s tax advisory service, has announced plans to close 24 offices in the North West, raising fears of more job cuts.
Offices in Bolton, Warrington, St Helens, Carlisle, Blackpool, Blackburn and four sites in Manchester will shut by 2021 under the proposals.
In their place two new regional centres will be built in Manchester and Liverpool by 2019-20 to house over 9,000 workers.
HMRC said it could not confirm the exact location of the two centres but that it expected between 2,800 and 3,100 full-time equivalent employees to work in the Liverpool regional centre and between 5,600 and 5,900 full-time equivalent employees to work in the Manchester centre.
It will save the authority £100m by 2025, said HMRC.
“HMRC has too many expensive, isolated and outdated offices,” said Lin Homer, Chief Executive.
“This makes it difficult for us to collaborate, modernise our ways of working, and make the changes we need to transform our service to customers and clamp down further on the minority who try to cheat the system.
“The new regional centres in Liverpool and Manchester will bring our staff together in more modern and cost-effective buildings in areas with lower rents.”
HMRC said it would “minimise redundancies wherever possible” but that some workers should expect to travel further or switch job roles.
But the Public and Commercial Services union said 11,000 full-time equivalent posts had been lost since 2010 and the cost-cutting measure would be “absolutely devastating” if more job losses were on the horizon.
HMRC’s workforce in the region is currently spread throughout 24 offices which range in size from around 1770 people to fewer than 15.
Closures in full
HMRC will be closing 24 offices in the North West in total between 2017-18 and 2020-21.
- Cheshire
Warrington due to close 2018-19
- Cumbria
Carlisle due to close 2017-18
Workington due to close 2018
- Greater Manchester
Bolton due to close 2019-20
Manchester four offices due to close by 2019-20
- Lancashire
Blackburn due to close 2019-20
Blackpool due to transfer to the Department for Work and Pensions.
Preston three offices due to close by 2020-21 and three to later transfer to the DWP.
- Merseyside
Bootle four offices due to close between 2018-19 and 2019-20
Liverpool one office due to close by 2018-19 and two to later transfer to the DWP
St Helens due to close by 2018-19
