Problems have occurred following the closure of the Tilbury Customs office as part of the centralisation of entry processing activity to the National Clearance Hub (NCH) in Manchester, the FPC has warned.

The migration process - due to be completed by March 2007 - saw the closure of the first Entry Processing Unit (EPU) in Tilbury in October.

However, according to the FPC, problems have occurred as a result of the migration These include the inability to deal with the number of incoming faxes, faxes going missing and being resent, re-sent faxes leading to duplicate entries, inexperienced staff not giving correct advice, the inability to deal with Common Veterinary Entry Document (CVED) for meat imports and the inability to deal with GATT certificates.

Fruit and vegetables have so far not presented a problem in terms of customs, but this is perhaps due to timing, the organisation said.

HM Revenue & Customs, it added, is unhappy with its performance so far and has refuted the suggestion that problems have occurred due to understaffing, instead blaming difficulties with systems and organisation.

However, changes are being made and the HMRC expect an immediate effect on the problems experienced so far, according to the FPC.

Chatham EPU, which covers Sheerness, is now provisionally scheduled to migrate in December, but HMRC will be flexible on this date, and does not intend to migrate any more EPUs until the Tilbury problems are resolved and its staff can deal with the additional workload.

The Manchester customs office, which is currently at the airport but will become National Clearance Hub in Salford, has 105 fully trained staff on site, but the original increase to 138 staff, may actually become 150 by March 31, according to the FPC.

Twenty-four-hour cover, which was originally scheduled to start in February 2007, also started last week and shift systems will be changed to suit peaks and troughs of activity.

An additional fax line has also been installed.

The FPC advises anyone who has incurred costs, such as additional demurrage charges, that are attributable to failure of Customs to clear the goods, to direct claims to Ray Payne at ray.payne@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk.

The NCH will move to Salford on November 27 and 28. The lack of fax capacity should not be a problem because there will be “superfaxes” installed with capacity for 240,000 documents per month, to deal with an expected volume of 175,000 documents per month, the FPC said.

Importers and agents are also encouraged to use email - northregionepuoperations@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk. However, ZIP files are not acceptable, as the HMRC firewall will exclude them.

Importers and agents faxing duplicate copies of an entry are advised to mark the fax as DUPLICATE COPY. All faxes should have a header sheet.

If you encounter any problems relating to customs clearance, please contact the FPC.