Part Three - Our strategic direction
Details of Inland Revenue's Business Plan - Our Way Forward.
Our Way Forward is Inland Revenue's new business plan for the next five years. Our Way Forward builds on the previous business plan The Way Forward and sets out our desired future and the key strategies for delivering on our outcomes and improving compliance.
Our desired future
- Inland Revenue is responsive in meeting the changing and increasing expectations of government and society
- We make it easy for customers to get it right and hard to get it wrong
- Society has confidence that appropriate action will be taken against customers who do not comply
- Increasingly, paying tax is seen as contributing to society
- We are professional, approachable, effective and efficient.
We developed Our Way Forward to reflect:
- the changing external environment
- government and community expectations of us
- our growing understanding of the Managing for Outcomes framework and how it can influence our strategic and operational planning
- how we want to operate over the next five years.
Our Way Forward focuses on some areas that are important to us as an organisation - our charter, our compliance model, and continued investment in our people. It focuses on being more agile and flexible in the way we work, and reducing compliance costs over time.
| Target and tailor our activities through understanding our customers |
| Optimise organisational efficiency and reduce compliance costs over time |
| Create an environment which promotes compliance |
| Continually invest in our people and the tools to deliver future outcomes |
Target and tailor our activities through understanding our customers
To continually improve customer compliance over time, we need to understand what will influence different customer groups to voluntarily meet their obligations to the maximum extent possible - customer insight.
To do this we will develop approaches to understand what information we need as well as what risks to the revenue may arise. We want to be able to gain real insights into customer behaviours and attitudes. This knowledge will become part of our normal decision-making process so we can be a more responsive and agile organisation, in tune with the changing demands of society.
These insights will help us design and deliver future interactions for our customers and enable us to do the following across all the activities we administer:
- improve our ability to develop policy and provide advice to ministers
- design our future systems and processes to make it easy for customers to comply and hard to avoid
- respond to new or changing needs, and develop more innovative solutions
- develop and maintain channels that meet both the customers' and our needs.
However, we are not looking to provide an individual solution for every customer. We will continue to use our process and technology strengths for bulk processing and communication. We will target and tailor our approach only where it makes sense to do so and where it will improve compliance and meet specific needs of a key customer group.
Optimise organisational efficiency and reduce compliance costs over time
To meet the growing expectations on us we must continually develop smarter ways of working and organising ourselves. At the same time, we must keep in mind our goals of delivering our outcomes and encouraging voluntary compliance.
We will achieve this by focusing on:
- actively participating in delivering "joined-up" services across government agencies to provide a seamless approach to customers
- making our processes easy to use, effective and efficient, by focusing on our high-volume transactions to actively encourage the use of low-cost channels and processes
- making the most of the advantages of future "e" technology opportunities for both customers and Inland Revenue
- working collaboratively and gathering and sharing information smartly- making it readily available in a way that is coordinated, accurate and containing all the information to meet customers' needs
- identifying and pursuing organisational cost savings
- developing our future workflows and processes to build a flexible and responsive organisation.
Reducing compliance costs
We also recognise the burden on customers in complying with the laws we administer. To reduce the associated risks of non-compliance we will:
- use the information and insights we gain to strengthen our ability to provide alternative and lower compliance cost solutions.
- seek to reduce these burdens on our customers over time by continuing to make this an important consideration in policy development, systems design and delivery processes.
Create an environment which promotes compliance
If we expect customers to meet their obligations voluntarily we must keep making it as easy as possible for them to do so. We also have a responsibility to make it hard for them to avoid meeting their obligations.
We do this by creating an environment that informs customers of their obligations and encourages them to comply. All Inland Revenue employees have a role individually and collectively in maintaining a positive public profile of our department within our society - this is integral to maintaining and improving voluntary compliance.
The compliance model
The compliance model (see Figure 9) guides us in tailoring how we deal with our customers. It takes account of the factors that influence customers' decisions and behaviours. We will use and refine the compliance model across all the activities we administer.
In applying the model we will:
- build strong relationships and partnerships - providing the right experience for customers through the right channels and making it easy to comply
- appropriately enforce the law to help move customers who have decided not to comply to a position where they are likely to do so in the future
- take an integrated approach, using both specialist and cross-functional teams to optimise our customer understanding, risk assessment and compliance model thinking.
Underpinning the model is the need for us to maintain and build on our core technical, legal and policy skills.
Figure 9
Our compliance model
Continually invest in our people and the tools to deliver our future outcomes
As a team of passionate and engaged people, equipped with the right tools and skills, we will successfully deliver our outcomes and achieve our desired future. We need an organisation where our people are technically skilled and professional. It's also important that we have the right tools and infrastructure to help us be an agile and technologically smart organisation. We will continually invest in our people, the tools they use, and the environments they operate within.
We will achieve this by ensuring our people:
- experience strong and effective leadership, with technical and people leadership being enhanced through succession planning and career development
- feel part of a learning organisation, sharing knowledge and learning from our collective experiences
- are proactively equipped with the right skills and experiences to do their current roles and to develop along their chosen career path. We will build on and enhance our critical skills such as legislative knowledge and relationship management
- are part of a passionate and engaged team who have clear goals and are recognised for their contribution and commitment.
Investment in our tools will focus on:
- ensuring our people have the right tools, including property, information, easy to use systems and processes
- continually investing in and maintaining a workplace that allows for ongoing agility in meeting our future objectives
- maintaining the integrity and sustainability of our systems and processes
- providing our customers with the right tools to make it easy for them to voluntarily comply.
Other sections of this report
| Minister's foreword | Size and shape | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five |
Date published: 08 Aug 2006
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