Britain's top civil servant comes from Revenue

An Inland Revenue employee has been chosen as Britain's 'Outstanding Public Servant of the Year' after saving more than £2 million of public money.

Pay on time

Christine Golden was selected from 300 nominees for her pioneering approach, commitment and determination in successfully leading an initiative to encourage and persuade 67 large employers to pay their tax and National Insurance contributions on time.

She brought forward £1 billion in delayed payments resulting in the saving of over £2 million in interest for the delivery of public services.

As well as receiving the top award, Christine also won the Award for Innovation for her dynamic and resourceful approach to setting up new systems to encourage electronic and prompt tax payments.

She was commended for the great strides made in changing the late payment culture amongst directors of some large employers - people who, as the Revenue announcement says, would normally be too senior for a Recovery Officer to deal with.

She also took on a role liaising and working closely with people at all levels and spoke at seminars and conferences in order to reach those policy officials responsible for tax payment.

The Paymaster General Dawn Primarolo said: "The fresh thinking she brought to an existing issue, and the way she focused on helping big employers understand and meet their obligations, in advance of their tax becoming due, summed up perfectly what the modern Inland Revenue is all about."

Awards

The Public Servant of the Year Awards is an annual event to recognise the achievements of people working in public industries. This covers both central and local government with 13 individual categories with the overall winner being the person judged to be the best of all entries in all categories.

The 2003 awards were held at the Marriott Hotel, in Grosvenor Square, London and were organised by Public Finance magazine in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the Cabinet Office and the Office of Government Commerce. They also supported the children's charity NCH.

The Outstanding achievement award was sponsored by Hewlett Packard with the Award for Innovation being sponsored by Zurich Municipal.