HMRC’s real time information (RTI) programme was the biggest development in PAYE since 1944. The scale of the project was huge, with over 100m payroll transactions reported through RTI every month (that is over 3m a day) for 2m employer schemes and for 40m employees and people with occupational pensions. By any measure, dealing with that volume of data day in, day out has to be regarded as a major success.

It was inconceivable that a project on this scale would have gone without a hitch and on 8 December HMRC published a post implementation review on the programme, examining what went well, what did not and, perhaps most importantly in the context of Making Tax Digital, identifying lessons for the future. My first reaction on reading the review was that it was remarkably candid. That candour is to be welcomed.