Linda Gifford

• Recruited as group volunteer coordinator, I identified additional opportunities to expand role and partner with local service providers to better serve client programs
• Designed engagement plan to monitor and progress interactions with volunteers, partners, donors and staff
• Developed school outreach plan to engage local school populations with KSM activities and provision.

• Compiled business case and gained approval to set up Birmingham/Solihull branch of adult literacy charity
• Recruited board members and reading coaches, sourced lesson venues, reader referral sources and funding
• Solihull branch became a national example of thorough Pioneer development, asked to advise other groups on best practice and identifying reader referral opportunities.

• Responsible for compliance policy, strategy and coordinating delivery across 6 disparate business units - delivery target of £1 billion achieved.
• Invited to co-lead a revenue generation / compliance review for Ghanaian government in July 2014. Worked with ministers, key Revenue officials and compliance officers as well as the IMF and other NGO's.
• Represented HMRC on cross directorate boards including evaluation of performance result claims, working with National Audit Office reviews, preparing Spending Review proposals for Treasury and dealing with the Panama Papers data.
• Represented SPT on development and introduction of new Promote, Prevent, Respond (PPR) upstream compliance strategy for HMRC, advising on KPI's to reflect new business direction.

• Recruited and managed a new team responsible for sourcing appropriate casework for all national specialist compliance teams within SI, including serious fraud and avoidance
• Worked closely with Risk & Intelligence teams, to identify and secure new seams of potential casework, including Anti Money Laundering teams, other government department intelligence and police activity
• New case referral structure, redesign of liaison and cross-business working helped achieve the successful development of a national £1 billion efficient and streamlined pipeline of investigation cases.

• Project manager for the restructuring of 1500+ staff in single function silo businesses into a regional based department of multi functional teams sharing expertise and skills
• Oversaw 4 project teams, led by peers, for Corporate Support and Services, Regional Structure, developing a new Cross Business Pipeline team and integrating Inland Detection (ID) teams into SCO
• Changes were met with significant resistance and valid concerns were opined within all projects, requiring wide and collaborative consultation, open discussion forums, a determined but diplomatic communication policy and negotiation and dispute resolution skills to resolve as many concerns as possible and deliver the new Specialist Investigations (SI) directorate on time.

• Joined Hansard team to investigate cases of suspected serious fraud with minimum tax omissions of £250k
• Managed a portfolio of investigations requiring formal information powers, tribunal presentations, complex research and analysis leading to difficult and complex negotiations with taxpayers and their professional representatives
• Worked with colleagues in Criminal Prosecution team on live location searches and evidence recovery
• Promoted to Hansard team leader, managing team of SCO fraud investigation staff and then joint Group leader responsible for delivery across fraud and avoidance teams in the region
• Represented SCO on national panel for consultation on new tribunal reform procedures and training.

Joined HMRC as a graduate trainee and undertook 4 years of professional exams and in-work training

• Chose a compliance route for specialism and gained experience in local offices of investigation work into individuals, small businesses and limited companies
• A keen eye for detail, analytical skills and interviewing abilities led to becoming a very successful investigator with several serious fraud cases identified for referral to Special Compliance Office.
• Documented findings and prepared detailed reports.