Welsh Revenue Authority Social Partnership Report 2024 to 2025

We’re a non-ministerial department of Welsh Government, created to work collaboratively to manage Wales’ devolved taxes. These taxes are specifically designed to fund vital Welsh public services in our communities. 

Our purpose is to design and deliver revenue services and lead on better use of Welsh taxpayer data. 

We aim to achieve this by:

• making it easy to do the right thing
• being fair and consistent in the way we deliver our services
• being a sustainable and future-focused organisation 

This social partnership report has been prepared by our Chief People and Communications Officer and agreed by our recognised trade unions.

The intended effect of the Social Partnership and Public Procurement Act 2023 (SPPP Act) is to improve the economic, social, cultural, and environmental well-being of people in Wales by strengthening the role of social partnership within strategic decision-making.

Involving both employers and workers in key discussions regarding improvements to well-being recognises and values the unique contribution and expertise brought by those directly engaged in public service delivery when addressing shared challenges and seeking innovative solutions. 

The SPPP Act states that: to seek consensus or compromise a public body must include its recognised trades unions or other representatives of its staff in the process of setting objectives or making decisions, by (in particular).

1. consulting them at a formative stage of the process, and 
2.  otherwise involving them throughout the process by:

• providing sufficient information to enable them to properly consider what is proposed, and 
• providing sufficient time to enable them to adequately consider what is proposed and respond

Read the full Social Partnership and Public Procurement (SPPP) Act on Legislation.gov.uk.

Due to our links to the Welsh Government, we recognise PCS, FDA and Prospect.

Our corporate plan strategic objectives are also our wellbeing objectives. These strategic objectives, when delivered through Our Approach and underpinned by Our Charter, will contribute to the 7 wellbeing goals. Integrating our strategic objectives with our wellbeing objectives means the wellbeing of future generations is built into our work.

This reflects that whilst our organisation has a huge change agenda over the next few years, we believe our foundations are sound and we want to build on those rather than change them. It also means that we are focused on achieving one set of objectives that meets the dual needs over the corporate plan period; ensuring our wellbeing goals are intrinsic to everything we do. 

In developing our objectives, we engaged the three recognised trade unions by initially providing a draft of the objectives. We invited feedback and took on board all suggestions received via this partnership approach. This resulted in a strengthening in the articulation of our equality objectives (also included in our corporate plan) and also being more pronounced in our commitment to partnership working generally. 

We fully engaged our people in the process too, encouraging feedback at every step. We developed a specific session at one of our staff away days to talk to them about the corporate plan and to gain initial feedback on style and content. We developed the content iteratively, ensuring that our people were content that it reflected the WRA and their work effectively. We engaged individual teams and took feedback on the measures that affected them. Following further discussion with our people we finalised the report. 

This engagement resulted in many adjustments, and clarifications to wording, ensuring a clearer understanding of our actions. These discussions enabled us to reach a consensus through a positive and collaborative process.

All trades union partners have approved and reached consensus on the objectives. This approach also shows how we collaborated with colleagues and sought consensus throughout the process. This report has also been approved by trades unions. 

At the WRA we recognise the vital role that social partnership plays in achieving meaningful, long-term impact. We believe that more can be achieved by working together with trade unions partners in a spirit of co-operation and collaboration.

For the WRA, this will underpin our ability to deliver high quality services to the public in Wales and improved outcomes. We see social partnership as a powerful enabler of positive, sustainable change.