Vehicle tax evasion is against the law and while over 98% of vehicles are taxed correctly, a small minority of vehicle keepers continue to break the law. It costs HM Treasury £94 million every year, vital funds which would otherwise go towards public services so it’s important to catch tax evaders.

We work closely with our devolved power local authority partners and the police to enforce against tax evaders and have recently been on the streets in Manchester, Walsall, Dudley and Nottingham carrying out targeted enforcement against untaxed vehicles.

I’m a National Enforcement Manager at DVLA, which means I’m the contract manager for the Wheelclamping & Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) enforcement contracts and the ANPR vehicle contract. I’m also the senior leader for Wheelclamping and ANPR staff both on site and remotely.

There are always new challenges in this line of work, but my role is to encourage and educate people to comply with the law by taxing their vehicles.  The last Roadside Survey, which has been carried out at 256 sites across the UK every 2 years since 2011, showed 98.4% of people were doing the right thing. We’re so pleased this was higher than the previous survey, but that still means that 1.6% of keepers across the UK are not taxing their vehicles.

Taxing is not taxing! It is really simple to do and it can be done online in just a few clicks, so why would anyone risk losing their vehicle and paying fines? There are also options to pay for your tax monthly by Direct Debit so there really is no excuse.

What are devolved powers?

Devolved powers are given to local authorities who have chosen to take on DVLA’s legal responsibility to take enforcement action on untaxed vehicles on the road in their area.  This power is devolved from the Secretary of State for Transport and I’m responsible for working with current and future partners to support them to conduct enforcement activity in their area.  This means that in these areas we have additional enforcement capability to support the national enforcement contract.

Police services can also be given devolved powers, including the ability to remove untaxed vehicles from the road under the same process as local authorities.

We have 84 Devolved Power Partners (DPPs) across England and Wales, and our national contractor, NSL, works alongside them to provide full geographical coverage across the UK.

We know from speaking to our DPPs how important having this responsibility to enforce is to them. They work hard to remove and disrupt criminal behaviour in their area, and I’m really proud that we are a part of that important work.  DVLA staff also support police services in conducting targeted operations as they have the power to stop vehicles in transit which we do not – another way to encourage people to tax their vehicle.

What’s been happening in Manchester, Walsall, Dudley and Nottingham?

These 4 areas are already committed DPPs but we wanted to give our help, advice and support to encourage increased activity whilst learning more about how they work. This has helped me to build a 12-month plan of working closer with our DPPs.

The support we provided was in the form of our own DVLA ANPR fleet who helped the DPPs to identify vehicle tax evasion hotspots, share intelligence and tackle untaxed vehicles by either clamping, impounding or issuing warning notices to the keepers.

Across the operations, we identified over 450 vehicles which were not taxed correctly so our DPP enforcement team took action either by clamping or impounding the vehicle – taking it to a local pound.

There are a few stand-out experiences for me. In Nottingham we found an untaxed car that the keeper had tried to hide behind a hedge, whilst in Dudley there were 7 untaxed cars parked in a row at the bottom of a road leading to an industrial estate – they resulted in a warning notice and 6 clamps.

In Walsall we put a warning notice on a large van that had not been taxed which had no rear tyres but was on bricks. When we were passing by later on, we found it had been moved onto a private driveway – we do not know how they moved it but we were pleased the notice had the desired effect for the keeper to take action.

We covered a really large area in Manchester where I witnessed an instant lift, where a car was lifted away from a main road and taken to the pound and, unfortunately, some of the abuse that the street team regularly gets from individuals who have not taxed their car.

What’s next?

The last few months of working more closely with our DPPs has given us lots of insight into how they work and what more we can do to support them. If we can understand the different challenges that they face, then we will know more about how we can help them.

We all share the same goal – to remove untaxed vehicles from the road – this is only fair for those vehicle keepers who have done the right thing and taxed correctly. Anything that we can do to help, I absolutely believe we have a duty to do so.

I’m really proud of my teams, both those who work behind the scenes in Swansea and members who work remotely, for the hard work and challenging contact that they deal with every day.

Action is still ongoing by many of our DPPs and we’ve recently launched a new communications campaign reminding vehicle keepers to tax. You can listen out for the adverts on radio or you may see it on digital channels.

To avoid the risk of losing your vehicle, make sure it’s taxed – you can check online to see if your vehicle is taxed in just a few steps. And if you need to tax your vehicle, it’s quick and easy to do online and you can spread the cost of vehicle tax by setting up a Direct Debit.

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Since April, almost 800,000 employees who have been working from home during the pandemic, have already claimed tax relief on household related costs, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has revealed.

The saving is worth up to £125 per year for each employee, and eligible workers can claim the full year’s entitlement if they have been told to work from home by their employer, even if it has been for one day during the tax year.

Employees who have either returned to working in an office since early April or are preparing for their return can still claim the working from home tax relief and benefit from the full year’s relief for the 2021 to 2022 tax year.

Employees can apply directly themselves and receive the full tax relief that is due. Once their application has been approved, their tax code will be automatically adjusted for the 2021 to 2022 tax year, receiving the tax relief directly through their salary. Agents cannot use the online portal to apply on a customer’s behalf.

Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said:

More people are getting back to office working now, but it’s not too late to apply for tax relief on household expenses if they’ve been working from home during the pandemic.

It’s quick and easy to check if you’re eligible and apply online – go to GOV.UK and search ‘working from home tax relief’.

Since April last year, the maximum amount employers have been able to pay tax-free without employees having to provide evidence of an increased bill was set at £6 a week. Employees who have not received the working from home expenses payment direct from their employer can apply to receive the tax relief from HMRC.

Eligible customers can claim tax relief based on the rate at which they pay tax. For example, if an employed worker pays the 20% basic rate of tax and claims tax relief on £6 a week, they would receive £1.20 a week in tax relief (20% of £6 a week) towards the cost of their household bills. Higher rate taxpayers would receive £2.40 a week (40% of £6 a week). Over the course of the year, this means customers can reduce the tax they pay by £62.40 or £124.80 respectively.

If employees were required to work from home during the 2020 to 2021 tax year but did not claim for the tax relief, they have not missed out; HMRC will accept backdated claims for up to 4 years. They will receive a lump sum payment for any successful backdated claims.

The number of claims made in the 2021 to 2022 tax year is 794,819, as at 27 June 2021, and refers to online portal claims only.

More information about claiming tax relief on work related expenses.

If an employee completes an annual tax return, they can apply for the tax relief via their Self Assessment.

The Student Loans Company (SLC) is commencing a procurement exercise to appoint its third Strategic Partner to provide a wide range of services across the Technology Change and Integration area within SLC’s Technology Group.

As part of its ongoing commitment to improving its service to customers, SLC has undertaken an ambitious programme to transform the commercial framework and delivery models leveraged across SLC’s estate when working with strategic technology partners, developing enhanced capabilities while delivering better value for public money.

The company has previously completed two competitive procurement exercises to appoint strategic technology partners to support the development of its Customer Enablement Services, with a focus on application development, and Platform Delivery and Technology Services. The third strategic partner will be appointed to deliver expertise, services, capabilities, and capacity to support SLC in the delivery and enhancement of a broad range of key internal and external business applications and services, as well as the decommissioning of legacy services.

Stephen Campbell, Chief Technology Officer at SLC said: “The strategic partner model allows us to work with a small number of firms to develop, deliver and support our technology estate and the digital services we provide to customers. I am pleased with progress so far, and very encouraged by the range and strength of responses from bidders in the first two rounds of procurement.

“In this third procurement we are looking for a partner with deep expertise in relevant Commercial Off the Shelf (COTs) and Software as a Service (SaaS) tools and technologies, and experience of working with Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to simplify, remediate, enable and transform a broad range of key technology services.”

Working in conjunction with its partners in the Department for Education, Devolved Administrations and the Cabinet Office, SLC has developed a procurement strategy that provides the most appropriate, compliant, public sector route to market for each lot within the programme, based on the complexity and stability of the in-scope services. The fourth procurement is expected to be released to the market later in September 2021.

For further information contact the Student Loans Company press office on 0141 306 2120 / press_office@slc.co.uk

Notes to editors

• The procurement exercise will be conducted via the Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) e-Sourcing Portal on Lot 4 of CCS’s Technology Services 3 (TS3) framework agreement, all relevant communication will be provided to the interested parties via this portal.

• In September Atos was awarded a contract to support the development of our Customer Enablement Services and in March, Capgemini were appointed to support Platform Delivery and Technology Services.

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