Chair’s Statement
I am delighted to report another year of substantial progress for Revenue Scotland. With record collections, we have kept our cost of operations as low as possible, while continuing to invest for the future.
As you will read from the detailed report we have begun to implement our Corporate Plan for 2024-27 and the strategic priorities it sets out and this remains our focus over the coming years. Our annual business plan supports our delivery across all four outcomes and I wanted to highlight a few important areas.
A key objective of Revenue Scotland is to ensure our customers receive the best service we can deliver. To enable this we have continued to develop our Digital and Data offerings, improving our architecture to remain ‘Digital First', and to ensure we keep our customers’ needs at the forefront. We continue to improve our guidance notes, our website and invest in our main digital systems. This is important as we continue to embrace new developments in the IT space and prepare to take responsibility for the collection and management of two new devolved taxes, Scottish Aggregates Tax, and Scottish Building Safety Levy.
Key to ensuring we remain an efficient and effective organisation is the continued investment in our people. With enhanced training and support, we continue to gear up our compliance activities, ensuring that we collect the taxes Scottish Government expects in a fair and robust way. Our People Scores in the annual Civil Service survey reflect a committed and inclusive group of professionals for which we are deeply thankful.
By the time we report next year Elaine Lorimer, our CEO, will have stepped down after almost 10 distinguished years at the helm. Elaine is an inspiring leader and has led from the front in building Revenue Scotland from its early foundations to the strong and vibrant organisation it is today. On behalf of the whole Board we would like to express our deep appreciation for everything Elaine has contributed and wish her all the very best for her next chapter.
We have successfully completed a rigorous process to find Elaine’s replacement and I am happy to report that we will have our new CEO in place before Elaine’s departure at the end of the calendar year.
It remains a time of change too at Board level and we have seen the departure of Martin McEwen after six years of excellent service as a Non Exec Director, chairing our ARC more recently, and we thank him for everything he has contributed over the years. We have successfully appointed two new Non Exec Board members, Alison Macdonald and Gillian Wheeler, both of whom will bring great skill sets to the Board. In addition we have added three co-opted members to our ARC and SEC committees, Stephen Ramsay, Julie Hesketh-Laird, and Elizabeth Barnes, further enhancing the skillsets that we will need as we navigate the coming years.
We look forward with confidence to the changes over the next period, supporting fully Public Sector Reform in Scotland, and I am delighted on behalf of the whole Board to endorse this report.
Aidan O’Carroll
Chair of the Board
Chief Executive Statement
2024-25 was a significant year for Revenue Scotland in that it began with the announcement of our fourth Corporate Plan which takes us through to 2027. The outcomes we set as part of this plan include the delivery of two new devolved taxes and making a step change in our digital capability, ensuring that we continue to embrace the benefits to our operations that technology offers. In this report we outline the way in which we have been able to automate some of our processes through our investment in our tax system, for example.
We also set out ambitious goals in relation to data, making our use of data much more impactful in the choices we make for our compliance work as well as the operations of our organisation. We report here on the investment by Scottish Government in a new Oracle system for HR and Finance and as a shared services customer, we have benefitted from this. We hope that in time the system will deliver the enhanced functionality it promises which should improve efficiency in transactional services. Our use of data is also at the heart of our approach to working with others and I am particularly pleased to report on the successes we have had across the tax system to bringing our knowledge of tax to bear on the introduction of new taxes in Scotland and in the approach we could take to joining up on compliance efforts through sharing of data with local authorities, for example. We have taken the initiative in these areas, working to build relationships, with providing a better public service at the heart of our intentions.
We continue to invest in our people and strive to offer careers which are stretching and fulfilling within a supportive, inclusive environment. Our people survey results are, once again, outstanding and to be placed in the top seven civil service organisations across all key themes was a great result, and a testament to the way in which we lead and manage our people and the culture we have developed throughout our organisation.
This is my ninth annual report and accounts and will be my last as I leave Revenue Scotland later in 2025. As I reflect on this year’s performance, it is apparent how far Revenue Scotland has come, from 2015-16 when I joined. Over the years we have learnt much from our experiences. Our ambition and energy to add value is undiminished.
We have always had at our heart the delivery of public service to the people of Scotland. Increasingly we can see the strategic role we can play in improving the wider tax system in Scotland, bringing our expertise to bear where it is relevant and appropriate to do so. The examples this year of our involvement in supporting local authorities and Visit Scotland with the introduction of Visitor Levy as well as the work we have been engaging in on the design and delivery of new taxes, be they local or national, are testament to our maturity and credibility. We have been actively engaging in the discussions around wider public service reform and in this we can also add value, bringing our experience to the table as well as being open to learn from others.
In signing off, I must record my thanks and appreciation to my Board and Aidan for his leadership, to my leadership team, and to everyone who has worked with me over the years to make Revenue Scotland what it is today.
Elaine Lorimer
Chief Executive