§ Mr. Andrew MacKayasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how access to taxpayers' computer records will be governed when the new computer system proposed by the business review of the collection service is introduced by the Inland Revenue; and if he will make a statement.
European Communities Budget 1986 Payment appropriations mecu Percentage of total budget 1987 Payment appropriations mecu Percentage of total budget All fisheries support 164.0 0.5 177.3 0.5 All agricultural support 22,902.2 65.1 23,804.0 65.8 European Social Fund 2,533.0 7.2 2,542.3 7.0 European Regional Development Fund 3,373.0 6.7 2,497.3 6.9 These figures are based on the payment appropriations entered into the 1986 and 1987 European Communities budgets.
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§ Mr. Norman LamontThe new computer system, BROCS, is planned to be implemented in stages from 1990. It will be designed to improve both the efficiency of the revenue's operations and the service provided to taxpayers. In particular, it will provide accurate and up-to-date information in three main areas where present systems are now generally seen to be unacceptably slow and fallible:
- (i) where a tax inspector needs to have information held on collection records relevant to an assessment for which he is responsible.
- (ii) where a collector needs to have information held on tax office records relevant to a tax debt which he is handling—to ensure that recovery procedures start with an accurate knowledge of the taxpayer's position.
- (iii) where a collector needs to know of information on other collection records—to confirm the payment position of outstanding liabilities, co-ordinate handling of cases where a taxpayer may have several tax debts outstanding and ensure prompt banking of tax receipts.
These facilities are, in essence, the same as those that tax and collection offices are authorised to have under the present collection procedures. It is proposed to adopt standard access rules for BROCS and the other main computer systems linked with it: COP (for PAYE); CODA (for schedule D) and OCTA (for corporation tax).
Access to information under these systems will continue to be strictly controlled on a "need to know" basis. In some circumstances, it will be given only to certain nominated officers and generally on a view-only basis. There will continue to be special controls for certain sensitive records. Additional safeguards built into the new system will include a separate record and audit trail of all accesses to computer records.