Alex Salmond gets in on the act

Members of staff from the HMRC office in Wick which is scheduled to close within the next year took the opportunity to highlight their case to save the office with the visiting First Prime Minister Alex Salmond whilst he visited the town.

As part of the “Wick Wants Work” campaign, supported by their union the PCS, staff displayed their banner and handed out leaflets to members of the public in the town centre before discussing the campaign with Mr Salmond. PCS member Alison Swanson said “they were delighted that Mr Salmond took the time out of his busy schedule to speak with them. He was aware of the proposals to close the office and fully backed the efforts of the staff to persuade the Westminster Government to change this decision”. Mrs Swanson said that everyone in the office was extremely upset to hear just last week that HMRC were preparing to employ 1,000 new staff to cope with a backlog of work just days after they confirmed the decision to pull out of Wick.

Allan Tait, the PCS rep in the office said “the meetings with Mr Salmond and his fellow MSP Rob Gibson had been an ideal opportunity to highlight the folly of centralisation of Government work. Both the Westminster Government and the Scottish Parliament had a policy of moving out work from the Cities but the reality as far as the people of Caithness was concerned seemed to be somewhat different”. Mr Tait said “a lot of effort would be required to support the Caithness economy as employment at the Dounreay nuclear power station falls from its current level of 3,000 to a skeleton staff over the next 5 - 10 years as the plant is decommissioned. The Government has to play its part by not only maintaining the public sector work already in the area but expanding by using the available pool of talented people in the County. If this does not happen there will be no future for the young people in Caithness and we will be looking at a modern day Highland Clearances”

Despite the experience of the 20 staff in Wick, HMRC no longer see a future for the Office as it does not fit into their location strategy. The nearest remaining HMRC office to Wick is situated in the Highland capital of Inverness a two and a half hours drive away.

Mr Tait said the “Wick Wants Work” campaign had received considerable support from local politicians, agencies and the general public who cannot understand that at a time the government are desperate for money they are closing a low cost office that is capable of bringing in tax proceeds many times what it costs to run”.

Mr Tait confirmed the campaign would go on until the government and HMRC see sense and the staff are planning a visit to Inverness to lobby Danny Alexander MP who as Chief Secretary to the Treasury has considerable influence concerning decisions affecting HMRC”. There is also a hustings being arranged for prospective Scottish Parliament candidates in the Assembly rooms in Wick on Tuesday the 26^th of April at 6pm.

The closure of the Wick office would result in no HMRC presence North of Inverness apart from an enquiry centre open in Wick for only a few hours, one day a week.