Scottish Income Tax - operation by HMRC: service level agreement

Annex D: HMRC Additional Accounting Officer Responsibilities

The legal basis for Accounting Officers is found in:

• Government Resources and Accounts Act (GRAA) 2000
• Government Trading Funds Act (GFTA) 1973, (as amended in the Government Trading Act 1990 and the Finance Acts 1991 and 1993)

The administration of SIT is a function of HMRC and so lies within the overall responsibility of HMRC’s Principal Accounting Officer, its Chief Executive.

The Command Paper, "Strengthening Scotland's Future”^[1], published alongside the Scotland Bill when it was introduced to Parliament on 30 November 2010, announced that an Additional Accounting Officer (AAO) will be appointed who will be specifically accountable for the collection of SIT, including the associated assets, liabilities and cash flows. Director General of Customer, Strategy and Tax Design, Ruth Stanier, was appointed to this role in December 2019. This appointment will not detract from the Principal Accounting Officer's overall responsibility for HMRC's departmental accounts.

Whilst not specifically addressed in the Fiscal Framework agreement, HMRC extends the AAO’s role to Scottish income tax, in keeping with the spirit of the Command Paper.

The AAO will have responsibility for all matters of governance, decision making and financial management in relation to SIT. This includes promoting and safeguarding regularity, propriety, affordability, sustainability, risk, and value for money for SIT; and accounting accurately, and transparently for all matters relating to it. The AAO will provide a SIT extract from the audited HMRC accounts to the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish Parliamentary Committees will be able to request the HMRC AAO to give evidence. The AAO will be available to give evidence when required.

Full details of the responsibilities of Accounting Officers are shown at Chapter 3 of the HM Treasury document, Managing Public Money.