False economy

The Inland Revenue estimates that ten billion pounds of tax has been written off because there are not enough staff to pursue it. I took early retirement in 1999 because inspectors were being constructively dismissed without any redundancy package - loss of private offices, unexplained and very sudden moves to inconvenient locations, etc.
The change to Self Assessment was purely to save money on inspectors - the details of your tax returns are keyed into the computer by junior staff and the computer is programmed to pick up possible anomalies which are then investigated by the much reduced team of inspectors.
Now, they may have the sense to recruit and train inspectors again who can use their intuition to 'smell' evasion in a way that no computer can.

It remains to be seen what the unintended consequences of cuts to staffing in the NHS and police services will be. Short-termism rules.