Almost half of calls to taxman unanswered

Published 25th Mar 2010

Almost 45 million calls from the public to get help on tax and benefits went unanswered last year and millions more may have been given wrong advice, a report by MPs warns today.


Almost half of the 103 million calls to HM Revenue and Customs in 2008/09 were not answered and those who did get through had to wait up to four minutes to speak to anyone.

The report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee condemned the taxman's call-handling operation as "poor" and called for better standards.

The performance is an added blow as HMRC is encouraging taxpayers to sort out queries over the phone or internet rather than letters and face-to-face interviews, in order to save money.

At peak times, customers with queries about their tax bills had to listen to a recorded voice for as long as four minutes before getting through to someone they could speak to, while the average waiting time was two minutes.

Some 6.8 million calls failed the department's accuracy standard but it could not say how many of those were a failure to follow set guidance and how many were because inaccurate advice was given.

HMRC contact centre staff spend just 38 per cent of their time handling calls.

The report said the organisation needs to be "more ambitious" in improving its service to callers. The department's target of answering 90 per cent of calls by March 2012 would still fall short of the industry standard of 95 per cent.

The cross-party committee urged HMRC to set the target of meeting the public sector benchmark of leaving callers no more than a minute listening to recorded announcements.

The report also said HMRC should reduce the confusion caused by running 139 separate telephone numbers and to avoid unnecessary calls by making its written material easier to understand.

Edward Leigh, Committee chairman, said: "If an organisation wants more of its customers to contact it by telephone, then it has got to be good at answering calls.

"HMRC unfortunately is not very good at answering calls, its performance remaining well below industry best practice standards."

He added: "It is very telling that contact centre staff spend only 38% of their working time handling calls or on follow-up work. This compares extremely unfavourably with the industry standard of 60% and points up the need to make more efficient use of contact centre staff time.

"Staffing levels should be matched more closely to the peaks and troughs of demand and the department must do more to cut the number of calls it regards as unnecessary."

Source: ' Telegraph '

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