HM Revenue and Customs Case Study
The test strategy served as a
pilot and has since been rolled out to other
departments.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is the new department
responsible for the business of the former Inland Revenue and
HM Customs and Excise. HMRC is responsible for collecting
the bulk of tax revenue, as well as paying Tax Credits and
Child Benefits, and strengthening the UK's frontiers.
HMRC's role is to ensure that the correct tax is paid at the
right time, whether this relates to payment of taxes received
by the department or entitlement to benefits paid. HMRC
collects and administers direct taxes, indirect taxes, child
benefit, tax credits and a number of other items. HMRC also
protects the UK by enforcing and administering border and
frontier protection, environmental taxes, national minimum wage enforcements and recovery of student loans.
The Project
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) had
invested in a major enhancement to its
corporation tax system; upgrading the platform
from a VME mainframe to a client server. A
legislative project, it was vital that the new
business-critical system was fully tested to
ensure business continuity and minimal risk on
deployment whilst not jeopardising the delivery
date of the application. Consequently, from the
outset investment in a well-structured and
focused test strategy was fully supported.
With a strict deadline to meet, HMRC
approached SDLC Solutions to develop a
comprehensive testing strategy and implement
the strategy across the whole project. The
objectives were to maximise avoidable costs;
provide confidence in the system before 'go live'
and develop the strategy as a blueprint for roll
out across other departments.
Automation was the focus of the test strategy
since it was necessary to run thousands of tests
across the new system against the old.
Automation of testing delivered huge operational
and business benefits. It enabled SDLC to
demonstrate the integrity of the new corporation
tax system with detailed documentation and scripts.
The test strategy also included a degree of
performance and unit testing to ensure that any
serious functional flaws and performance issues
were identified and removed before deployment.
Bob Docherty, Chief Architect, Capgemini, the
HMRC's incumbent IT specialist comments:
“SDLC demonstrated an understanding of the
business needs of HMRC and an appreciation of
the culture of the organisation from the beginning
of the relationship. A true partnership was
established. This coupled with SDLC's ability to
cover a range of skills from detailed test analysis
through to automation is why the relationship has
lasted more than 4 years. This project established
a best practice blueprint which has since been
rolled out successfully across a number of other
HMRC departments.”
Key Benefits
- Robust testing strategy minimised risk and
provided significant time and cost savings
during and after implementation.
- More efficient resource allocation which
resulted in greater specialist availability due
to reduced manual testing.
- Deployment of the test strategy served as a
pilot and has since been rolled out to other
departments.
- The quality and reliability of the Corporation
Tax system were assured due to significantly
reduced manual testing which removed
duplication and any risks of human error.