Further to our earlier communications this week, HMRC has provided BIFA with an update on the progress so far in restoring a normal service on CDS.
The technical fix that HMRC outlined yesterday has successfully passed the initial testing phase. To be confident that implementing the full fix will not cause further disruption, they are conducting further testing using additional information from colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade.
Their intention is then to move to full implementation, targeting high usage commodity codes as a priority and then working through the remaining stuck declarations. This means that the clearance of stuck declarations will be an incremental process over the coming days.
Goods are still being released manually through the National Clearance Hub and the business continuity processes that were introduced earlier in the week, allowing goods to move without an MRN where appropriate, remain in place.
All goods that are permitted to move remain under customs control until HMRC confirm that they have been cleared.
HMRC understands that the business continuity plan will not benefit everyone, but they say that it will ease the volume of requests coming into the National Clearance Hub and allow the team to focus on requests which cannot otherwise be released.
If you have already contacted the National Clearance Hub or CDS Helpdesk, please do not call or email again to check on the status of your request – this will impact the team’s ability to work through as many manual clearance cases as they can.
Any deferred Customs duty or Import VAT due from supplementary declarations affected by this issue will be taken from Duty Deferment Accounts on 17th April.
Member Action: Members must ensure that they have sufficient funds in their bank account for this payment to be made and ensure that their duty deferment limit will not be exceeded in April. Members may need to top up their deferment account if this is the case. Please visit gov.uk for more information on how to do this.
HMRC would like to thank Members for their continued patience while they work through this issue, and apologise for the inconvenience caused.
