05 August 2024

Each year HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) releases a report detailing how they are performing against their Charter aims. The 2023-24 report has now been released.

In a message from Sir Jim Harra KCB, HMRC’s Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary, he stated that they are “fully committed to our Charter because the experience our customers have is central to our vision of being a trusted, modern tax and customs department.”

However, went on to say “This year we faced serious challenges in delivering our customer services because of financial pressures and the need to manage a growing number of customers with complex tax affairs. This meant customers who needed to speak to us sometimes struggled to get the help they needed.”

The report includes feedback from:

  • The Customer Experience Committee
  • An independent Adjudicator
  • The Charter Stakeholder Group, which the CIPP policy teams sits on.

Some key highlights that we have pulled form the report are:

Customer Experience Committee

  • Recognises the challenges faced by HMRC, but helpline performance is still well below expected standards.
  • Welcome HMRC’s decision to cancel the planned closure of helplines to divert customers to online routes, despite previous success.
  • Good progress is being made with use of online services such as the app, where 1.5 million customers used the service to view their National Insurance number.
  • There is still low awareness of what customers can and can’t do online.
  • Where customers can get through to a helpline colleague, they report that they are helpful and informative.

Adjudicator

  • Supports HMRC ambition to move customers to online services.
  • “Without either an injection of resource or a new plan, issues with the phone lines are likely to remain in the short to medium term.”
  • HMRC seems to be returning to a more balanced state with less complaints waiting to be resolved.
  • The application of the charter has improved at HMRC, but it needs to become a significant factor in their decision making.

Charter Stakeholder Group

  • 1,647 responses were obtained from its survey on the Charter standards, 1,330 being from agents and the remainder from individuals.
  • Customer service levels continue to dominate the comments received.
  • Being responsive was the lowest scoring standard, with an average score of just 2.4 out of 10.
  • Awareness of the Charter increased in individuals.
  • 88% of respondents feel that HMRC is not held to account for its Charter standards performance, with only 3% indicating that they are held to account.

As with any report of this size, there are many more details within the main body. We thank anyone who was able to respond to the Charter Stakeholder Group survey earlier this year. Please keep an eye out for this next year, it really does help to understand how HMRC are handling your queries and builds a year-on-year picture of how they are improving (hopefully).

You can see the Charter here, including information regarding making a complaint where you feel the Charter standards are not upheld.


Information provided in this news article may be subject to change. Please make note of the date of publication to ensure that you are viewing up to date information. 

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