HMRC has released an update on performance against financial targets for 2012-2013, revealing that while improvements have been made, the Revenue still has some way to go.
The provisional performance statistics look at how HMRC has performed against targets for a range of compliance, operational and customer service measures.
Along with citing the introduction of real time information (RTI) for PAYE as a significant move forward, HMRC said it handled 75.2% of calls for the full year, achieving their target, with 90% of call attempts from October 2012 to March 2013 being handled.
The Revenue also cleared 85% of post within 15 working days and 97% of post within 40 days for the financial year ending March 2013.
It also cleared 96.3% of CT, PAYE and SA debt that rose between April and November 2012 within 90 days. In addition, between April 2012 and February 2013, tax credits and child benefit claims were cleared in an average of 15.5 days.
HMRC’s figures can be viewed as part of a continuing dialogue with tax bodies and the Public Accounts Committee, which recently described HMRC’s target for answering calls from taxpayers as "unambitious and woefully inadequate".
The PAC noted that HMRC received 79m calls in 2011/12, but 20m of these calls were not answered, and a third of the letters received in the same period were not given a response within a 15-day target.
However PAC Chair Margaret Hodge welcomed the department’s changing attitude toward customer service: “Officials are beginning to realise that good customer service lies at the heart of any strategy to maximise revenues while cutting costs.”
The ICAEW Tax Faculty - a participant in a joint service quality initiative with HMRC and other tax bodies - continues to monitor the situation, and has highlighted issues around HMRC’s email pilot scheme and the closure of HMRC enquiry centres.
The Tax Faculty team found several areas which needed improvement in the email pilot, including increasing the scope of what can be handled by email, making the format more prescriptive and making it easier to identify clients in HMRC responses.
Trial participants are being allowed to continue using email for certain communications with HMRC such as agent authorisation notifications, bankruptcy cases, SA CWF1 cases, loss relief claims, coding queries and amendments, SA statement queries and employer schemes.
The Institute also raised concerns over the closure of HMRC enquiry centres set out in the consultation document “Supporting customers who need extra help - a new approach”. The main points to the Institute’s response were:
- There is likely to be an ongoing need for face to face contact of some description not necessarily confined to those identified by HMRC as needing extra help and alternative ways of making face to face contact should be provided if enquiry centres are closed
- HMRC’s telephone service, although improving, is not yet capable of meeting demand in terms of both time and quality of response
- Concerns about the practicalities of making home visits and whether HMRC will actually be able to achieve a satisfactory outcome for the taxpayer
- Concern that the timescale for running the pilot and evaluating the results before enquiry offices are closed is too short.
