HMRC trials 'choose your own device' policy - but it won't be iPads for all

HMRC staff to be allowed to select end-user devices for personal productivity, says CIO Mark Hall

iPads might be on the menu for some staff at HMRC, as the tax authority pilots a "choose your own device" policy in response to growing staff demand for a greater say on the kinds of computers that they use to get their jobs done.

The organisation, which has some 68,000 employees, includes both office-based staff and tax inspectors and other staff working in the field. It is also leading the government's end-user devices strategy.

"We don't have a bring your own device (BYOD) policy - our strategy is 'choose your own device'," says HMRC CIO Mark Hall. He continues: "The big drive for us is to move to 'consumer-based devices' and to take away the lock-in of a standard build."

The choose-your-own policy that the organisation is developing is an alternative to BYOD, a movement that has been supported in many other companies to accommodate staff preferences for smartphones and tablet computers.

HMRC is currently trialling a system in which any PC could be connected to HMRC's network, "and it will automatically self-configure to be an HMRC-standard device and away you go," says Hall.

The initiative follows years of development of HMRC's desktop management technology with Cap Gemini, its main partner in the Aspire outsourced IT contract that will be re-tendered in 2017.

The desktop strategy is part of a broader drive to cut the cost of desktop computing across the public sector, which has been criticised for being insufficiently aggressive in cutting PC costs compared to the private sector.

Part of the purpose of the HMRC strategy is to drive down desktop IT costs with commodity hardware, rather than having to procure specially configured devices from particular suppliers.

Although it has eschewed BYOD for security reasons, HMRC has provided iPads for some staff, where appropriate.