Overall value of the Aspire contract
2.2 The services and projects provided through Aspire have been essential to HMRC's ability to collect over £500 billion of tax each year and have helped HMRC increase the effectiveness and efficiency with which it collects that revenue. Aspire has helped HMRC reduce manual processing, increase its analytical capability and introduce case management. Over the lifetime of the contract, Aspire has also helped HMRC to integrate the two former departments (Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise), generate more tax yield from its compliance work, and substantially reduce its headcount.
2.3 Since 2006-07, the operational cost of HMRC (excluding what it pays out in tax credits, child benefits and other entitlements) has fallen by 30 per cent (Figure 2 overleaf). This suggests that Aspire has contributed to improved efficiency but does not prove a causal link as a range of other efficiency programmes have operated in this period.
2.4 HMRC tracks benefits at individual project or programme level. For example, we reported in 2011 on how HMRC had used the Aspire contract to extend the online filing of tax returns.13 We noted, however, that HMRC only had a high-level view of Aspire's cost for this project and could not benchmark this cost or compare it to the value created.
| Figure 2 The operational cost of HMRC fell by 30 per cent between 2006-07 and 2013-14 while the volume of work fell by just 8 per cent. Technology delivered under Aspire is likely to have contributed significantly to improved efficiency
Notes 1 Operational costs include capital and running costs but exclude depreciation and entitlement payments such as tax credits. 2 Numbers are not available on a consistent basis prior to 2006-07. 3 Amounts have been adjusted to 2013-14 values using the GDP deflator. 4 Taxpayer numbers have been weighted using the average revenue collected from each type of taxpayer. 5 Numbers may not add due to rounding. Source: National Audit Office analysis of HM Revenue & Customs' statistical data |
2.5 HMRC has not quantified the value it has obtained through the contract or made direct links between Aspire's performance and its own strategic performance measures, such as increased tax yield or efficiency savings. Further, it has not quantified the total risk associated with the Aspire arrangement. This information would allow HMRC to make strategic and long-term decisions, such as their move away from a prime supplier contract for technology and towards a new multi-supplier model, on a clear evidence base.
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13 Comptroller and Auditor General, HM Revenue & Customs: The expansion of online filing of tax returns, Session 2010-2012, HC 1457, National Audit Office, November 2011.