Dear Sir/Madam

Freedom of information request

I am writing to confirm that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has now completed its search for the information you requested on 23 April 2009. I can confirm that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that HMRC do not keep all the specific information that you have requested.

In your request you have asked us for the following information with regards to those families who have just been granted refugee status or Indefinite Leave to Remain under the legacy exercise.

Only questions 3 and 9 which are requests for recorded information fall to be answered within the Freedom of Information Act. I'll deal with those first and respond to your other points later in my reply.

Question 3 and 9

What guidelines does the HMRC have in order to alleviate the obvious poverty faced by these families while they wait months for tax credits & child benefit claims to be processed?

What is the complaints procedure in place where the help line staff take a complaint but no calls are ever made back to the complainant to discuss the complaint, letters also go unanswered & staff refuse to give out the telephone numbers to the complaints department?”

Answer

Under section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.

All details on our guidance are available on our websites. The information you requested about Child Benefit procedures and legislation can be found on our Child Benefit website at the following site: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cbtmanual/index.htm and all guidance on procedures for the dealing with tax credits claims can be found in our tax credit manual on our HMRC Tax Credit Website at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ntcmanual/index.htm

Legislation that is followed to assess tax credits is the Tax Credits Act 2002 and Ancillary Regulations. These and the Tax Credit Technical Manual, a guide to the law relating to tax credits, are available at [Author ID1: at Mon May 18 14:55:00 2009 ][Author ID1: at Mon May 18 14:55:00 2009 ][Author ID1: at Mon May 18 14:55:00 2009 ]http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/tctmanual/TCTM11000.htm[Author ID1: at Mon May 18 14:55:00 2009 ][Author ID1: at Mon May 18 14:55:00 2009 ] .

Information on HMRC performance objectives and Public Service Agreements are published annually in the Departmental accounts. Details on targets to accurately process tax credit awards and Child Benefit claims and the performance against these targets for each year can be found in the HMRC Autumn Performance Report 2008, pages 11 and 24. This can be found on the HMRC website at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/about/reports.htm

The HMRC complaints procedure can be found on our website at www.hmrc.gov.uk

Details on how to complain are available in our fact sheet, `Complaints and putting things right'. This is available at the following webpage: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/factsheets/complaints-factsheet.pdf .

I should explain that if a customer wants to make a complaint by telephone they are to contact the normal helpline to raise their concerns.  The contact centre will try to rectify the problem at that stage, but if this is not possible the helpline advisor will then send an electronic referral to the relevant Child Benefit or Tax Credit Office. This will either be passed to a customer service manager in Child Benefit or will be dealt with by the relevant designated team within the Tax Credit Office.

The complaints department for the Tax Credit Office is spread out over multiple sites and the helpline does not have the telephone numbers of individual complaints examiners. If the complaint cannot be resolved straight away, it is logged onto a complaints database, and an acknowledgement letter is then issued providing the managers name, direct dial telephone number and a date by which we aim to resolve their complaint.

In a Child Benefit claim if a customer is unhappy with the way the designated customer service manager has dealt with a complaint by telephone they can ask to have their complaint escalated to the Child Benefit / Tax Credits Directors Office who will again look at their complaint. The Directors Office will respond to the complaint, usually in writing and they will quote the office telephone number on the reply.

The other questions you have asked are explanations and not a request for recorded information and fall outside of the Information of Freedom Act. However in order to address these queries please see the response below.

From your explanation given I have interpreted your remaining questions to be based around what happens when a customer has been given Refugee Status or Leave to Remain exceptionally outside of the Immigration rules.

These customers receive information and letters from the Borders & Immigration Agency (BIA). The customer is told to complete the pro-forma provided for National Insurance Number (NINO) allocation and take it, with the relevant documents into a Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) Office. If the customer is eligible for tax credits the customer will complete the claim form and the DWP will send it to us under our joint departmental fast track process. In the Tax Credit Office these claims are processed by a specialist team and monitored to make sure they go into payment without undue delay. There are no backlogs on this team and the average clearance time for claims is 11 days. Similarly in Child Benefit Office, they are identified on their receipt and are treated with priority by the specialist team that deals with customers who previously lived abroad.

We are well aware that vulnerable customers need to receive their entitlements quickly and we are happy to investigate specific cases to see where this appears not to have been the case. We would of course need their details to do this and would need their written consent to discuss their circumstances with anyone else other than the customer concerned.

Notes

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by HMRC will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright on HMSOnline (internet access required) at:

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licences/click-use-home.htm

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright) information.

Conclusion

If you are not happy with this reply you may request an internal review by either e-mailing `[email address]', or by writing to:

HMRC FOI Team

Room 4/52,

100 Parliament Street

London

SW1A 2BQ.

You must request a review within 2 months of the date of this letter. It would assist our review if you set out which aspects of the reply concern you and why you are dissatisfied.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by HMRC. He can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Karen Murtha

Freedom of Information Officer