Boley Smillie said that improvement would now be driven using ideas from frontline staff who had been overlooked in previous changes which have left the service in crisis.
‘I don’t know how long it’s going to take admittedly, but in the future we will use the Revenue Service as an example of the way to manage change within the organisation,’ said Mr Smillie.
‘At the moment, it is the opposite – it is how not to manage change.
‘The reality we have to face is that in that part of the organisation we have delivered systems and processes that hamper good people who are trying to get their job done, the very stark consequence of which is that they are then consumed dealing with the issues that follow.’
At this week’s States meeting, new Policy & Resources president Lindsay de Sausmarez refused to put a specific timeline on when customers would see improvements at the Revenue Service, but said she hoped to provide a positive update by January.
Speaking yesterday at a lunch hosted by the think tank Gpeg, Mr Smillie said he could ‘guarantee improvement over the coming months’, and added that he and other senior leaders in the States should be held accountable for that, rather than frontline staff.
Mr Smillie attended a meeting this week at which more than 100 staff at the Revenue Service were invited to share their observations about current problems and how to put them right.
He said staff were showing unprecedented levels of engagement and had already provided about 140 ideas to help turn the service around.
‘We need to fix the challenges at the Revenue Service once and for all,’ he said.
‘Change within the organisation has to happen from the bottom up way more than it is now.
‘I will put on the record right now that this is the change you are going to see at the Revenue Service over the coming months.’
Customers have experienced poor levels of service in recent years and the service is still facing a massive backlog of tax assessments and repayments.
Mr Smillie, who took up his post at the beginning of the year, assured people that sorting out the service was at or near the top of his to-do list, but wanted them to understand that frontline staff were not to blame for the problems.
‘They are doing an amazing job in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Unfortunately, they feel like they are doing their jobs with one arm, sometimes two, tied behind their backs.
‘They are full of ideas and very ambitious in wanting to repair confidence in the service.’
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