Customs Handling of Import & Export Freight


Customs Handling of Import & Export Freight is the computer system of the United Kingdom's revenue and customs services, HMRC.
CHIEF manages both the declaration and movement of goods into and out of the United Kingdom and is a means by which UK traders communicate with counterpart customs systems in the other member states of the European Union. It also manages movement of goods across EU borders where the moved material belongs to a UK party.

Roles

The major function of CHIEF is to manage the data behind import and export movements and calculate revenues due on those movements.
CHIEF accepts customs declarations from traders, validates the data, and if valid records it. It profiles the data sent and will award a "route of entry" to the declaration. This describes the steps that must occur for the movement to be permitted, and may include automatic clearance for trusted traders or a physical inspection of the good or paperwork for other traders.
Having accepted declaration data, CHIEF and the inventory system that is managing the physical movement of the goods communicate.

Typical paths

Typical flow of data and events might look like this.

Export

  1. Trader pre-declares data to CHIEF
  2. Goods physically arrive at the port
  3. Inventory system informs CHIEF of the goods' arrival
  4. CHIEF re-processes the stored declaration, now aware that the goods are at the port. It will grant 'permission to progress', at which point the goods may be loaded onto the craft.
  5. The craft departs and the inventory system informs CHIEF
  6. CSP informs the trader that the goods 'departed UK'

    Import

  7. Trader or port system creates consignment on CSP inventory system
  8. Trader pre-declares data to CHIEF, stating that it represents goods on the above consignment
  9. CHIEF confirms with inventory system that the consignment exists
  10. Goods physically arrive at the port
  11. Inventory system informs CHIEF of the goods' arrival
  12. CHIEF re-processes the stored declaration, now aware that the goods are at the port. Declaration is awarded a 'route to clearance', which for trusted traders may mean automatic clearance, or may require a documentary or physical examination
  13. Goods are cleared automatically by CHIEF or by customs officers
  14. CHIEF informs inventory system of clearance
  15. CSP releases the cleared goods to the trader once all local port and commercial requirements are met

    Reports

In both import and export scenarios, unsolicited "reports" are sent when a change occurs on the declaration record, such as when the record is reprocessed upon goods' arrival or when the goods depart the UK. Reports are also used to communicate customs officers' enquires or requests to the trader.
Traditionally the reports are automatically printed onto paper at the trader's office, although this is slowly being replaced by entirely electronic storage.

Management

Until 2010, CHIEF was managed on behalf of HMRC by BT, British Telecommunications Plc, part of the BT Group Plc. The contract was not renewed and Capgemini took over on 17 January 2010. It was then managed by Aspire, a joint venture between HMRC, Fujitsu and Capgemini operating until 2017.
The management of CHIEF and other EU customs systems was insourced by HMRC in 2016.

Technical information

CHIEF is a proprietary application, which while under BT ran on the VME O/S on Fujitsu hardware. The database software is IDMSX.

EDIFACT data format

CHIEF accepts declaration data from traders using proprietary EDIFACT messages based on the well-known United Nations D04A CUSDEC message. It replies using the D04A CUSRES, the CONTRL and using HMRC's twists on the UN's CONTRL and CUSRES messages, the UKCTRL and the UKCRES.
Inventory management data are exchanged with the CSPs using entirely proprietary messages, UKCINV messages.

Access

Being a vital government system that controls billions of pounds worth of revenue, access to CHIEF is tightly controlled. There are four major routes into CHIEF:

CSP

Service providers are companies that have a special relationship with CHIEF and who run inventory management systems at ports. Movement of good through these ports is managed by the CSPs
These CSPs have dedicated connections to CHIEF.
Traders' declarations are usually submitted using the EDIFACT format defined by HMRC, sent to the CSP who will usually check its data against their inventory before forwarding the data to CHIEF. Responses from CHIEF are sent back to the trader, either as part of the transaction in which the upload occurred or as an unsolicited message.

Government Gateway

For certain types of customs declarations, traders may access CHIEF without going through a CSP. This is achieved over the Internet using email, an XML web service or a website. The endpoint for the trade is a front door to all UK government services, the Government Gateway, who then use the GSI to reach CHIEF.

HCI

The Human-Computer Interface is a telnet-like application that allows green-screen access into CHIEF. Declarations may be completed by typing data directly into CHIEF. The CSPs provide the physical means to use this method, usually both the terminal software and the transport mechanism.

Customs access

s, who have ultimate control of customs activities, need a means to perform their business operations. They access CHIEF using terminals.

Links to the EU - ECS

The EU-wide export control system is an arrangement for sharing movement and security and safety data among member states. CHIEF using the ECN+ software to link to the central ECS domain in Brussels.
Since 1 July 2009, CHIEF sends movement data to ECS but only when box 29, the office of exit, has been completed by the trader.
CHIEF has had the capacity receive data from other member states for when a UK customs office acts as the office of exit for some time.
Although the specification for the EDIFACT input for CHIEF for import declarations allows for CHIEF to be used for lodging pre-arrival declarations, this was never implemented and on 1 November 2010 an entirely separate Import Control System was launched.

Future plans

CHIEF STE

In May 2010, HMRC formally announced its plans to retire "Classic" CHIEF in summer 2012, replacing it with CHIEF STE. The objectives of this are to meet HMRC's obligations to have a service-oriented architecture for its applications, to incorporate TARIC 3 specifications and to allow for easier enhancements and changes. CHIEF STE will be a ground-up rewrite of the application baselined at Summer 2009 plus all formal changes. Major changes include the dropping of EDIFACT in favour of XML, compliance with TARIC 3, and the dropping of the HCI in favour of HTML web pages.
According to the HMRC website:
In January 2012, when asked how the department is progressing with the delivery of CHIEF STE, HMRC

stated that "HMRC continues to work with Capgemini to establish a way forward, gather requirements and re-plan the delivery. However, delivery will not now take place in 2012."
In March 2012, HMRC stated
"it was likely that the
CHIEF rewrite project
would now be put out to tender under a new contract following
negotiations with Cap Gemini. HMRC and Cap were close to
agreement on closing the current STE project. The changes to the
Cap Gemini contract with HMRC would not affect the running of the
existing CHIEF Service".
In November 2012,
HMRC intimated that there was likely to be an announcement later in December 2012, but had no further updates for the meeting.
The minutes of the JCCC Customs Change Sub Group Meeting in June 2013 state:

CDS - Customs Declaration Service

In around 2015, HMRC announced a new successor project to CHIEF. The project to replace CHIEF, after the demise of the CHIEF STE project, underwent various names, including "CHIEF 2" and "CHIEF Replacement Program". Ultimately a decision was made by HMRC to remove the name CHIEF from its successor, to reflect that it would be a new ground-up project.
Customs Declaration Services was conceived as being a new service hosted on the central Multi-Digital Tax Platform, and accessed via the Government Gateway. In 2016 HMRC selected vendor IBM to provide off-the-shelf software that would be customised to meet the UK's needs. The contract to acquire this software was due to be signed the day after the EU Exit referendum on the anticipation of a remain vote; the signing was delayed until approximately September because of the relatively unexpected leave vote to allow HMRC to check that the IBM product would still be suitable.
CDS will comprise the core IBM product, also used in the Netherlands, highly adapted to allow the continued use of some of the same concepts used under CHIEF.
The release of CDS is phased, with the first stage going live in August 2018 for a limited number of traders and a very niche set of business scenarios. Refer to . A second phase, adding full import functionality, is expected in late 2019. A third phase, with export functional, will occur after that.
A complex solution to allow the dual-running of CHIEF and CDS for exports is being developed, refer to