Flaws noted in FBR Restructuring

The restructuring of the Federal Board of Revenue is said to be taking place without proper consultation of the Director General Human Resource Management (HRM) Wing, a key department responsible for workforce planning of the tax machinery. It has been reliably learnt here on Tuesday that the Director General HRM is expected to take up the matter before the Board-in-Council meeting of the FBR to be convened on Thursday (tomorrow).
The major concern of the DG HRM Wing is that the concerned department has not been consulted during the whole process of change of positions of Commissioners and Additional Commissioners at Large Taxpayer Units and Regional Tax Offices. The FBR had constituted the HRM Wing under the Tax Administration Reform Project (TARP) for workforce planning and other HR related issues including restructuring. However, the HRM Wing has not been consulted during the whole process.
It is expected that the Director General HRM would give a presentation on the issue in the upcoming Board-in-Council meeting. The DG HRM will inform the Board-in-Council about the importance of this wing in the overall reshuffling of tax officials vis-à-vis workforce planning/human resource. As the HRM Wing has the mandate to play a major role in workforce planning, the restructuring of the FBR without input of the FBR HRM Wing is not appropriate, sources said.
Under the recent restructuring of the Board, the FBR has abolished the posts of Commissioners of Audit, Legal and Enforcement at LTUs/RTOs. Through an office order, the Board has brought four Additional Commissioners including Additional Commissioner Audit, Additional Commissioner Enforcement and Compliance and Additional Commissioner Legal within the jurisdiction of Commissioners at Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs). The HRM Wing can give valuable input on the current changes at the level of Commissioners at LTUs and RTOs.
According to the structure of the FBR HRM Wing, the Wing would have the mandate to be engaged in workforce planning. It covers liaison with BPR teams, liaison with line managers in reformed units, work activity analysis, job design revision, liaison with Admin Wing on re-designation of posts. The FBR HRM Wing also deals with foreign training including listing of short courses offered by foreign providers, processing and recommendation of applications, processing of applications for master degrees funded by TARP, liaison with foreign training providers on misc. issues. Besides, the FBR HRM Wing is also engaged in local training including Directorate of Training (DOT) courses, job related training by local providers, management training by local providers, other training by local providers, liaison with DOTs.
It is also responsible for institutional training including EMBA, in service MBA, refresher courses, capacity building programmes and orientation programmes. The FBR HRM Wing is also allowed to deal with the policies and procedures, performance linked bonus scheme, organisation structure, HR related seminar and co-ordination with other wings. The FBR HRM Wing would also be engaged in Tax Administration Reform Project related activities.