April 6, 2018 A transformational business plan
The start of any tax year brings changes and challenges for business and individuals alike. Whilst some changes hit the headlines others fall more under the radar. So whilst at the time of writing the main talking point relates to the sugar tax, other measures such as changes to minimum pension contributions, the national living wage, tax bands and so on are less talked about but more likely to affect a far wider constituency.
However, if change was simply a matter of rates and bandings then business progression would be minimal at best. It was with interest therefore that we noticed that Companies House had chosen the last day of the tax year to launch its business plan for 2018/19. Reading through the plan two key words emerge; transformational and ambitious. Although the plan in essence covers the next year only, it also marks the start of a three-year programme which is intended to transform every aspect of the Companies House service. The program has customer needs and ongoing excellence at its heart as it attempts to create an end to end digital experience in respect of every one of its individual services.
With 3.9 million companies on its register and processing over 30,000 transactions every day it is no wonder that Companies House sees its future in terms of digital transactions. However, the fact that it seeks to do so whilst simultaneously delivering high levels of compliance and customer satisfaction demonstrates its determination to provide leadership across the business sphere.
The Companies House plan also recognises the importance of internal transformations in order to deliver external results. With this in mind, one element of the plan looks delivering some changes to the culture and management approach in order to “engender a shared vision and understanding, enabling our people to think beyond their own roles.” There is also a recognition of the importance of helping their people to respond to the ‘rapidly changing world;’ being adaptive and able to cope with rapid change. Leadership, proactive performance management and a commitment to people development also form an intrinsic part of the delivery strategy.
In the forward to the plan Lord Henley (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) commented “This plan outlines measures to transform the organisation: developing better customer-driven services and further developing the skills within the organisation, whilst concentrating on continuing to improve the quality of the data on the register.”
