HMRC to improve customer service

25 June 2015

£45 million is to be allocated from the current spending settlement to cover the cost of paying for the recruitment of 3,000 additional staff this year and for allocating around 2,000 staff from other HMRC business areas which is being made possible following investment in new telephone equipment, which allows HMRC to switch calls to other offices, not just take them in contact centres, so that more staff can help at the busiest times.

Call handling statistics for 2014-15 reflect variable month by month results but over the year and of the 64,782,747 call attempts only 72.5 percent of calls were answered with 7,244,652 calls receiving busy tone.

Lin Homer, HMRC Chief Executive, has accepted that standards had not been good enough and said:

“Good customer service is an absolute priority for HMRC. We set ourselves the target to answer 80 per cent of calls, to provide a more consistent level of service across the year and to reduce peaks and troughs in service levels between busy and quieter times.”

CIPP quick poll results - 12 May 2015

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