With ~35 working days until Brexit hits for real, a thread about the new IT systems... 1/
A House of Lords committee has just heard stark evidence from industry that critical systems won't be ready on Jan. 1, especially the customs system for Northern Ireland, known as CDS (Customs Declaration Service) 2/
Steve Bartlett, head of the Association of Freight Software Suppliers, says they haven't been able to do testing, there are grave reservations, they've simply run out of time 3/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Des Hiscock, DG of the Automated Customs and International Trade Association, gave it both barrels to HMRC, said the situation is `totally unacceptable' and consequences could be `catastrophic' for Northern Ireland 4/
Other points from Hiscock: we don't have agents trained to make declarations on CDS, and the government's customs grant system has failed by not being open to individuals wanting to re-skill, and not being open to firms less than 1 year old 5/
A good related point from @fsbsonali - paying for a customs broker is only part of the expense for businesses. They also need to set themselves up internally to source the data to fill out a customs declaration, which is itself time-consuming and costly 6/
Plus companies are being asked to do this in the context of coping with the pandemic 7/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
What's the response from HMRC? Sue Roberts, head of Customs Transformation, says they `do recognize there are challenges', but that delivery of their programmes is on track. Is industry therefore wrong? Roberts's reply: 8/
As many of the Lords point out, we'll find out Jan 1 if HMRC's optimism is justified. The NAO report last week made similar points about lack of readiness... ends/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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