Public Accounts Committee denounces HMRC performance
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has today published its report into HMRC Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24. The ATT provided evidence to the PAC in November and we are pleased to see many of the concerns raised by members reflected in the report’s conclusions.
Digital Services
In their report, the PAC expresses doubts that HMRC’s digital services are as good as HMRC believes them to be. ATT members reported they would be keen to do more online with HMRC, but there are significant gaps in HMRC’s digital services. Even where online services do exist, agents do not always have access to the full range of digital services available to taxpayers.
The ATT considers that it is vitally important that agents can see and do all that a taxpayer can see and do online. This is not currently the case, and there remain a number of important areas where there are no digital routes for agents, even though the route exists for taxpayers. We hope this disparity will be addressed in HMRC’s digital roadmap, due to be published in the Spring.
We were pleased to see the PAC support our call for a secure, digital method of communicating with HMRC. HMRC considers email insecure, but provides limited alternatives to post. Introducing a secure messaging function would allow taxpayers and agents to track correspondence more effectively and would help to reduce the time spent chasing for a response.
HMRC phone lines
The PAC highlight that service standards on HMRC phonelines have continued to decline, with only 66.4% of customers’ attempts to speak to an adviser answered and average call waiting times exceeding 23 minutes.
We support the PAC’s call for HMRC to put the needs of taxpayers first when designing their telephone systems. But ATT members report that issues with HMRC services are not just about answering phones, it’s also important that taxpayers and agents can access quality advice and support once they reach an adviser. Our members tell us that they often receive poor quality or meaningless advice on both phones and webchat - and that promised call backs do not occur. These problems force them to contact HMRC repeatedly.
We were pleased to see the PAC recognise that even if HMRC is able provide good digital services, many taxpayers will still need to be able to contact HMRC by phone. Even organisations like banks, with well developed digital services – and significantly simpler services than HMRC offers – still need to offer phone lines to their customers.
Access to telephone support is vital if a digital service does not accommodate the individual taxpayer’s situation, the taxpayer can’t access it, or they encounter technical issues whilst using it. ATT members report that if they or their clients experience problems with HMRC online services, they can find themselves passed from pillar to post around different helplines to resolve issues. Even in a digital world, telephone access to well-trained HMRC advisers remains an essential safety net for taxpayers.