10 October 2005
Grossman to leave BBC for civil service change role
Russell Grossman, head of internal communications at the BBC, is leaving to head up internal and change communications at HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) from January.
HMRC, the newly formed government department following the merger of Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, handles more than £325bn in revenues and accounts for around a fifth of the UK civil service. Grossman has been given the brief of creating a unified culture that will drive performance and give a high level of customer service.
“They’re different cultures, different heritages,” he said
of the two former departments. “Both are very strong and they
need to come together.”
But it’s the drive for customer service that Grossman expects
to occupy much of his time. “The big cultural shift for the department
will be focusing on the customer, rather than just collecting tax,” he
said.
There’s a hard-edged business agenda as well as bringing together two very interesting cultures.
Some of the lessons Grossman has learned during his six years at the BBC will doubtless be invaluable in his new role. Just as the broadcaster faces thousands of job losses at present, so too will HMRC. One of the biggest issues he'll tackle is a cutback of between 15 to 20% of the 110,000 workforce by 2008. “There’s quite a hard-edged business agenda as well as bringing together two very interesting cultures,” he said.
But there will also be scope for experimentation: “I certainly want to try out what might work in a best-practice organization, particularly one that’s as diverse as this. It’s an opportunity to mould an internal communication department into one that’s a high-performing, best-practice one – rather like we’ve achieved at the BBC,” he said.
Despite having lots to play for and a whole new budget to do it with, Grossman wouldn’t be drawn on whether he’d be inviting consultants to pitch for work. “There’s obviously a big agenda there,” he added tantalisingly.
As yet, no one has been named to take over from Grossman at the BBC. It’s expected an announcement will be made in the next few weeks with a handover period taking place in December.
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