“Superb and almost unbearably charming, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven… expertly launches an exciting new trilogy." —The New York Times Book Review "Talk about a gut punch of a novel. …A provocative exploration of intersectional feminism, loyalty, gender and transphobia [that] invites readers into an intricately woven web of magic, friendship and power." —The Nerd Daily A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft in this epic fantasy about a group of childhood friends who are also witches. If you look hard enough at old photographs, we’re there in the background: healers in the trenches; Suffragettes; Bletchley Park oracles; land girls and resistance fighters. Why is it we help in times of crisis? We have a gift. We are stronger than Mundanes, plain and simple. At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right. Juno Dawson explores gender and the corrupting nature of power in a delightful and provocative story of magic and matriarchy, friendship and feminism. Dealing with all the aspects of contemporary womanhood, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.

In 2011-12, 20 million phone calls to HMRC were not answered. It cost the callers £136 million while they waited to speak to an adviser. And, against its target of responding to 80% of letters within 15 days, the department managed to reply to just 66%. Officials are beginning to realize that good customer service lies at the heart of any strategy to maximize revenues while cutting costs. Callers will no longer be forced to use the more expensive 0845 numbers. Other planned changes include the resolution of more queries first time and a call-back service where this is not possible. However, HMRC's new target of answering 80% of calls within five minutes is still woefully short of the industry standard of answering 80% of calls within 20 seconds. Just how the department is going to improve standards of customer service, given the prospect of its having fewer staff and receiving a higher volume of calls, is open to question. HMRC plans to cut the number of customer-facing staff by a third by 2015. At the same time, the stresses associated with introducing the Real Time Information System, Universal Credit and changes to child benefit are likely to drive up the number of phone calls to the department. HMRC is also to close all of its 281 enquiry centres which give face-to-face advice to customers. HMRC considers that it will be able to improve service standards by using its staff more flexibly. It may need to put in additional resources, though, to avoid the kind of plummeting performance we have seen in the past

HMRC's action against tax avoiders continues to be unacceptably slow. The Liberty scheme, for example, began in 2005 and was closed down in 2009, but it has taken until 2014 to take this case to a tax tribunal. Up to £10 million of the total £400 million tax at stake may not be recoverable because in 30 cases HMRC failed to start inquiries into personal tax returns within the 12 month statutory deadline. HMRC should report on the progress it has achieved by using new powers granted by Parliament and show that it is using its existing powers with sufficient urgency. Recent changes to the UK tax regime have been challenged by international bodies like the OECD and European Commission as constituting 'harmful tax practices'. These changes make it easier for global companies to avoid paying tax in the jurisdictions where they make a profit. HM Treasury and HMRC should provide details of progress in identifying and addressing the ways that international tax structures are exploited, and set out the actual costs and benefits of recent changes to the UK's tax regime. It is amazing that HMRC made a £1.9 billion error when it established its baseline and set targets for its compliance work. This means HMRC has been overstating the extent to which its performance on compliance yield has improved and it inadvertently presented misleading information to Parliament. Astonishingly, this significant error in a key performance measure went undetected by HMRC's own system of governance and internal audit for three years

This new edition incorporates revised guidance from H.M Treasury which is designed to promote efficient policy development and resource allocation across government through the use of a thorough, long-term and analytically robust approach to the appraisal and evaluation of public service projects before significant funds are committed. It is the first edition to have been aided by a consultation process in order to ensure the guidance is clearer and more closely tailored to suit the needs of users.

HMRC paid £30 billion in tax credits in 2011-12, providing support to nearly six million individuals and families. Yet in 2010-11 one in five awards contained error or fraud which resulted in claimants receiving more money than they were entitled to. £2.3 billion was lost to error and fraud in 2010-11, £850 million higher than expected. HMRC's target was to save £8 billion from reducing tax credits error and fraud by 2015, but it will miss this target by £5 billion. HMRC needs a more realistic target for the amount of savings it should achieve from reducing error and fraud. The support provided to claimants, in writing and through its helpline, also needs to be improved. This will help ensure claimants receive the correct amount and avoid overpayments. In 2011-12, HMRC wrote off £1.7 billion of tax credits debt. HMRC must work more closely with organisations that represent claimants to get a better understanding of where claimants need help so it can make improvements to the support it provides. Greater checking of awards led to an increase in appeals against decisions to reduce or terminate the amount of tax credit paid. But insufficient resources to deal with the appeals resulted in delays and caused unnecessary distress and hardship to claimants. Better use of data to identify patterns and trends in claimant behaviouris crucial. HMRC also needs to improve its understanding of why claimants do not always report changes to their circumstances as this is when the majority of error happens.

HM Revenue & Customs has improved its approach to tackling error and fraud in tax credits but has not yet achieved a sustainable reduction in the level of losses. In 2009, HMRC announced a target to reduce error and fraud to 5 per cent by 2010-11, down from 9 per cent. HMRC missed this target. Error and fraud losses for 2010-11 were just over 8 per cent, amounting to almost £2.3 billion, around £850 million higher than if HMRC had achieved the target. HMRC has been innovative in how it tackles error and fraud, developing a wide range of activities to tackle specific types of risk and monitoring their effectiveness. HMRC believed it was on track to meets its target, but had overestimated the impact of its activities to tackle error and fraud. It estimated that it had prevented £1.4 billion of error and fraud in 2010-11, but has revised this to under £500 million. HMRC has not yet developed an effective response to stop error and fraud recurring after it has corrected a claim. It has also been less effective in tackling certain types of risk, such as the misreporting of hours worked by claimants. Despite HMRC increasing the number of checks to tackle error and fraud, there remain a substantial number of incorrect awards at the end of each year. In 2010-11, in the case of 1.4 million awards, claimants were paid more than they were entitled to