We’ve been working with HMRC for the last few months on the consultation for their draft customer charter. This consultation follows a first round of consultation last summer, which produced a draft charter which is now open for comment before being finalised. If you want to take part in the formal consultation, then you can do so here.
However, HMRC is also really keen to make sure the views of 15 to 24 year olds are heard as part of this consultation, after all if they’re not paying tax now then they will be very soon.
To help them achieve this, we’ve put together ‘Charterpelago’, an online game that allows users to read statements from the draft charter, select the ones they want to see go into the final charter, and rate them in order of priority too, all within a virtual world, where the statements are represented by different animations (project completed – link no longer available).
We’re always keen to hear what people think of our projects, and this type of outreach is a new move for a government department, so we thought we’d open this blog post up for people to leave comments on and discuss the game; what they think, what they like and what they don’t like.
Gez
As a parent I’m irritated that you couldn’t be bothered to get the punctuation and grammar correct in the Charterpelago game. (“What’s this about” on the first page needs an apostrophe. The clause after the “and” in the Proactive statement needs the subject “I” inserted). This tends to promote the impression that HMRC doesn’t bother about detail. For a department which is responsible for drafting and construing legislation, the interpretation of some of which turns on linguistic niceties, this is bad news.
I think it was disappointing that the game indicated that it was going to seek the views of the young people at whom it was aimed, and then didn’t.
What if they didn’t agree that the 12 statements were the most appropriate, and wanted to offer alternatives? What if they thought 7 or 9 should form part of the charter, rather than 8? What if they thought all 12 should be included – after all, someone presumably thought all 12 important enough to be considered in the first place?
Regards
Kathryn Robertson
Charterpelago is a disappointing waste of money
This is really awful. I’m 22 and I find it insulting. Why as a young person do I need to be treated with Ker-azy characters! and insults to my intelligence. At age 15, I would have found this below me. Who the hell designed this thing?! I hate it when people complain about ‘wastes of taxpayer money’ because obviously some things are not going to work, nor appeal to everyone, but really, this is pathetic.