Agent Dedicated Line waiting times set to increase
HMRC has written to agents to inform them of changes to the Agent Dedicated Line from 2 October 2023. From this date, agents are told that they should expect waiting times to increase as the 10-minute call-answering target is removed.
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Last 3 calls, 55 minutes, 37 minutes and 44 minutes. Old days typically 2 / 3 minutes maximum.
Never knew about 10 minutes target. The agents line is manned by some good people but just too slow now. Much of HMRC sadly is not fit for purpose.
It wouldn't be such a hassle if client coding notices were available for all, state pension figures and the download figures fetched from HMRC worked.
Ready for this...
In the past 2 weeks I have called HMRC 11 times (I have a few pressing issues)
Wait times of over 40 minutes on each
2 calls were answered and queries were recorded to be passed up to the relevant department (that no doubt I'll never hear from)
1 call which was to the complaints department as soon as I said "I am an Agent" said "I need to check the Guidance" then the call was immediately ended.
8 calls weren't answered, either 40-50 minutes in I got the automated "goodbye" or the call just dropped to a dead line.
HMRC is not in any way shape or form fit for purpose, you can bet your last rolo HMRC and Bodies will blame the agents for not sorting issues out, the simple answer is that we can't.
It also makes us looking absolutely [***] in front of clients and I am [***] fed up to the back teeth of it.
Your experience is all too familiar. There is little hope for improvement.
This should make MTD very interesting.
What concerns me greatly is that this type of organisational ineptness is spreading throughout society on the back of the continuous shift to automation. Any problems arising from automation often take a disproportionate amount of time and effort to resolve and is often ignored for convenience, typically at a cost to the public.
I've not had a call answered in less than 20 mins since Covid! Really poor service for "Customers"
It really is beginning to feel like HMRC are trying to deliberately make our lives more difficult!
I would have thought that having agents looking after clients affairs would improve the quality of information being processed and generally reduce the weight on HMRC from the public. I do not understand why things need to be so difficult...
We certainly were never aware of a 10 minute target, very few calls are answered within 40 minutes for us and the fact that we haven't been able to contact them for months means its going to be a complete crazy fest when they open the lines again.
There is an underlying reason why HMRC are behaving this way, and have done so for a very long time now, and that is because they want all taxpayers and agents to use online accounts and more automation.
What HMRC fail to see is that most calls are made because the online accounts do not provide the answers.
HMRC have no difficulty in sending out penalty notices and other meaningless correspondence but fail to address the important issues.
We are being manipulated to their agenda.
"We certainly were never aware of a 10 minute target"
They probably only told Jim Harra this bit of misinformation to keep him quiet and under control.
There is a theory that HMRC would rather taxpayers didn’t have advisors as this minimises the tax take and punishable mistakes.
More comments from Accweb members on this subject can be found here:
https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/hmrc-agent-dedicated-line-adl
and here:
https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/i-s-this-a-joke
and here:
https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/new-hmrc-agent-dedicated-lin...
As others have said, HMRC’s claim of a 10-minute average response time is a joke. I can’t remember the last time a call to the ADL was answered in less than 20 minutes. It took over 35 minutes to get an answer yesterday. Luckily, I have always got plenty of other stuff to be getting on with while listening to HMRC’s lovely “call waiting” music!
I need silence to concentrate so ringing HMRC and listening to the "call-waiting" music is not an option.
lucky if they answer at all within 40 minutes - they just put you on hold and often put the phone down - then when you do get through most of the time you speak to someone who doesnt understand the issue and quite often have a bad attitude.
well past time to dissolve HMRC
In addition to this, I have actually (which is why I'm so angry with HMRC) written to them on behalf of a client (this week) they are wrongly chasing for monies, a pensioner who has multiple heart and anxiety issues (a few heart operations to boot!) that rings me constantly with worry about letters chasing for £10k plus because HMRC haven't actioned an amendment they have promised in writing they would 2-3 YEARS ago.
We have warned the complaint department that if the issue is not resolved in 30 days then the client is happy to go public with it.
My contempt for HMRC is at an all time high and unfortunately I don't actually think the Government even know how bad it is.
Oh yes they do.
They just don't care as issues with service levels at HMRC aren't likely to make the Daily Mail headlines.
Yep - over 40 minutes this morning and same last week.
I'm also having to use my mobile to call as every time I do get through on my landline they say that they can't hear me (I can hear them fine) and tell me to call back and hang-up! Every other call I make is fine, other than to Barclays Bank, so I'm guessing that it's due to the call being forwarded to people working from home and them using crappy headsets!
Ah Barclays Bank, the customer service helpline that tells you that they are all too busy to answer your call, and that the current wait time is in excess of 3 hours. I finally left them in May due to not been able to satisfy their KYC update, because they wouldn't tell me what extra information I needed to provide them with. I could only do this by telephone apparently!!
I moved to a digital bank (Virgin and Recognise) and they both answer their customer service helpline in less than 3 rings. I nearly fell out of my chair the first time that happened.
I keep getting text messages from Barclays telling me that I have a statement ready - I closed all of my Barclays accounts over 10 years ago. The text messages started a couple of years ago and when I went in to the Branch I was told that they couldn't deal with it there and I would have to ring their technical helpline. I still haven't managed to get past the automated call directing system to get through to anyone!
I believe all civil servants should be back in the office full time now. The tax payer is paying their salaries so they should be held accountable. I known a couple of people that work for HMRC in Newcastle, with back office jobs. Both work from home 4 1/2 days a week and both openly admit they have nothing/ very little to do. The half day in the office consists of arriving at 7.30 - 8.00 then leave at midday to "work from home". Both of them are on around £50k/year with a massive pension. Ironically the first line telephone support earn £22k/year. Unfortunately, they now have a sense of entitlement and think they should be able to sit watching day time telly in bed when they should be working.
This is exactly why it is [***] service across the whole of the public sector - they are not working at home.
Whichever Select Committee has oversight of HMRC should call Harra and a couple of his bag carriers into their meeting room one morning, together with an actual agent accountant with some real life client queries to resolve. They should then ring HMRC on a speaker phone, set a timer, and every single person in that room should sit in silence until the phone is answered.
Only once the call or calls are satisfactorily completed should the clock be stopped. With the agent and client's permission the whole event should be recorded and placed on YouTube.
It won't achieve anything other than to give Harra and his minions an hour or more of awkward and public embarrassment.
My colleague rang the ADL last week and the chirpy advisor said "thank you for holding it has taken 8 minutes to answer your call". My colleague replied that according to the screen on his phone it had in fact taken 54 minutes from the time the call was "picked up" by the HMRC messaging service to the time the call was actually answered by the advisor. The advisor was adamant that at his side it only registered 8 minutes so it makes you wonder at what point HMRC are actually tracking the length of time it takes for a call to be answered.
The answer is simple. Everyone else is striking so why don’t all agents and professional bodies completely disengage with HMRC until HM Treasury and the chancellor adopt a system of engagement rather than enforcement. In my 15 years of running my business I have gone from local tax advisors who worked with me to foreign call centres who have not a clue about tax, finance or anything closely related. Enough is enough!!!!
What a surprise, more service decreases.
Also, that 10 minute target currently in place.... I have waited approx 4x times that long for EVERY call I have made to them in recent months.
Is there any action that we, as agents, can collectively take?
I think it is time for MP protocol to change so that you can write to the relevant MP who oversees any department so we could write to Jeremy Hunt, Harriett Baldwin, Meg Hillier direct.
HMRC's response that by agents using digital services it will free up experts to provide telephone support is complete & utter nonsense. The quality of HMRC staff manning the ADL has rarely been of a good technical level and many calls now tend to result in a phrase " This is a bit over ny head so I will need to e mail an Inspector with a request to call you back" . If agents are being told that experts will be answering the phones, why would they bother wasting time with digital services?
Whenever I am told that I am given a callback request I make a note on file to ring HMRC again the next week as the issue has gone into the black hole called "backroom referrals never dealt with and callback promises that are never fulfilled"
I had no idea it was 10 minutes. Never less than 30 mins and the amount of times I just get cut off is ridiculous. If HMRC gave us access to what we need, we wouldn;t have to ring up, but there is clearly a converted plan to cut us agents out as much as possible.
My current predicament: a client has asked why his tax code has changed. He claims not to have a received a paper copy. I can't access it on-line (despite being agent for 6 years+) andI can't work it out blind. He cannot get into the gateway as he receives an error message. He has tried to call them but can't spend over an hour on the phone trying to get through. I spoke to HMRC a month ago and they wouldn't send me a copy of the code nor tell me what was in it, they said they'd post it out again to the client. A month later, still not received by the client. I have called HMRC several times this week and every time, after around 30 minutes I just get cut off.
One thing that is for sure, with all of these comments;
"Sir Harra has lost the dressing room"
That is, of course, if he ever had it.
Previous occupants of his post have failed and from past experience, failure in this department (HMRC) is rewarded in the most perverse manner. I've always though that senior civil servants, who are pretty useless but in a particular post, are signed off, up the ladder, until the ladder has no more rungs left. And then, they're ennobled.
Mind, the whole country is currently full of useless incumbents. Yes, Minister,
No targets any more in public sector - any old crop job / response will do. Yet they employ more, pay more and 'work from home' ... oh ... maybe THATs the problem.
10 minutes aaahahahaha.
In the last 5 years, I have never once had a call to HMRC answered in less that 40 minutes. More than half of the calls are simply cut off either before being answered or the second the handler realises that this is going to require some work beyond pointing me at their hellsite.
They're a shower of [***] and I look forward to the day the entire corrupt edifice is torn down and replaced with something that works and is actually accountable.
Next HMRC will remove the 14 day deadline for responding to post. What is the world coming to?
Next HMRC will remove the 14 day deadline for responding to post. What is the world coming to?
Ah, I remember it well! When I was in the Revenue back in the 70s, anyone having post more than 14 days old was in trouble and at one point, when it got too bad, they put all of the incoming post in boxes and shared it out between us all instead of being allocated by reference as was done before. One poor TO(HG) couldn't cope and started taking post home. It was only found (in a suitcase) by his wife after he committed suicide!
It was like that in HM Inspector of Taxes in the 80s when I was there.
People would go off on long term sick for stress and you would find cupboards of old post.
It has become increasingly difficult not to laugh when HMRC say anything about the use of Online Services. Indeed it has become an oxymoron in the sense that the two words are literally now poles apart. By way of example , I applied on 10 September for authorisation to act for a client. & where we are the Registered Office ( No need to worry about any delays with it going to the client etc). The online service shows the letter with the code has been sent out awaiting code entry. I managed to speak to someone on a separate matter today and just asked if these things were being sent by 2nd class post. His answer was that whilst it shows the code as having been generated & sent out, it may in fact take up to 11 days before the letter actually leaves the relevant building. The 30 day validity however started on the date the code was generated. What I fail to understand time & again is that HMRC want agents to engage with them using technology ( Their Online Services) but when they deal with anything they are still rolling up the message & clipping it to the pigeons leg .