I have experience in Customs and International Trade and Tax Compliance from my time in HMRC. I have qualifications in Customer Service and hold an undergraduate certificate from the University of Cambridge. I'm also currently studying with The Open University.
My most important career move has been from AO to O Band at HMRC. I had felt that the time had come to move up a grade and look to learn something new. I have found compliance to be totally different to when I had started at HMRC doing but have found the transition from Customer Service Group (CSG) to Customer Compliance Group (CCG) to be quite smooth.
I feel that starting to work at HMRC back in November 2020 was also an important career move for me. I had not really known up until that point how the Civil Service worked, having only worked in the private sector up until that point and felt that since 2020 I have been given a good insight into this.
I make sure that the right tax is paid at the right time
My current position at HMRC is as an O Band Compliance Caseworker. It is my job to assess information provided by tax payers to see whether the right amount of tax has been paid at the right time. I am trained in Corporation Tax originally but have since trained in VAT and Self-Assessment to broaden my skills be better able to help more customers pay the right amount of tax at the right time.
Doing the best I can
I'm motivated by doing the best I can for my customer, although I have now moved from Customer Service Group to Compliance Group, I am still dedicated to serving the people and working hard to deliver the best possible service to them. I am excited to now work in Campaigns and Projects to be able to help customers in many different ways.
Expand your abilities
Something that has helped me to move up in my career at HMRC is taking on new tasks from working on additional projects for the HO's in Customs to training new starters to the business. I actually wrote and delivered a training package for new starters when I was AO in Customs, I felt this not only increased my skillset but it also helped me to make sure that anyone starting in the same role as me learnt the job from the perspective of an AO.
I have also taken on projects where I have led a group of people, for example, clearing an email inbox where we had a large number of emails. I delegated colleagues to cover particular time slots, making sure that the emails that had been waiting the longest for a response were dealt with first.
I got my community through the pandemic
Although not directly related to my work here at HMRC, something I'm particularly proud of was that in March 2020 I set up an organisation in my community to help us get through the Coronavirus Pandemic. We won the bid as an organisation from the City Council to be the only group in our town to be able to run the services needed to get us through from organising volunteers to do shopping for residents who were isolating to providing food parcels to those who needed them and running a team of telephone befrienders to call those who were isolating on their own and needed someone to talk to.
I will always be proud that I created this scheme that helped my community to safely get through.
