£50M Bung Helps HMRC's Call Centre Improvement - A Bit!

 

HM Revenue and Customs appears to have begun the tortuous process of improving its handling of telephone enquiries in July – two months after government approved a £50m-plus investment to support service improvements.

In recent months, performance has been falling, seemingly bottoming out in the first month of the new fiscal year, with a rate of just 53.5% in April. This has clawed its way back up to an underwhelming 60.4% and 59.5% in May and June, respectively.

HMRC’s newly published customer-service statistics for July show another imporvement to 66.9%. This figure is now ahead of the average for the whole of last year – but remains 18 percentage points below departmental targets (85%). The department received about 3.1 million calls during the month, the statistics reveal.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC Service Levels Fall Further

 

In the 2023/24 fiscal year, HMRC faced significant challenges in meeting its service standards. Here are some key stats that highlight the agency’s struggles:

1. Telephony Handling Rate:

   • The successful handling rate for helpline callers seeking to speak to an HMRC adviser was 66.4%. This fell well below the departmental target of 85%.
   • Compared to the prior year’s 71.1%, this decline is concerning.
   • Thousands of callers suffered much longer wait periods, with 55,000 calls ‘timed out’ and automatically terminated after 70 minutes on hold.
     

2. Customer Correspondence Timeliness:

   • The proportion of customer correspondence cleared within a 15-day timeframe dropped from 76.3% to 72.7%.
   • Again, this lagged behind the target level of 80%

Basically the service levels are shit.

Anyone remember the Taxpayers' Charter, isn't this meant to help taxpayers have some recourse against HMRC?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Tax Investigation Insurance

Market leading tax fee protection insurance for businesses, sole traders and individuals. Protect yourself from accountancy fees in the event of an HMRC enquiry.

Having a Solar Protect Tax Investigation Insurance policy at your disposal means that should you be one of the many 1000's of businesses or individuals that are selected by HMRC each year to look into your tax affairs your own accountant (your tax return agent) can get on and defend you robustly.

You have the peace of mind knowing that your accountant's (your tax return agent) fees will be paid by the insurance without any Excess for you to find.

Tax Investigation Insurance is an insurance policy that will fully reimburse your accountant's (your tax return agent) fees up to £100,000 if you are subject to enquiry by or dispute with HMRC.

A Solar Protect policy will enable your accountant (your tax return agent) to:

• Deal with any correspondence from HMRC
• Attend any meeting with HMRC
• Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal or Upper Tribunal
• Having the security of knowing that fees will be met in full will enable your Accountant (your tax return agent) to defend your position robustly

Please click here for details.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Atalian Servest Acquires Another HMRC Contract

Atalian Servest has been awarded its fourth contract with HMRC in less than 18 months.

The global service provider has been providing cleaning, catering and security at HMRC’s Newcastle office since May 2018.

The latest deal adds another 14 sites to the company’s existing partnership with HMRC.

Services to the new sites will include cleaning, catering, reception, waste management, grounds maintenance, pest control, portering and mail. The company will deploy approximately 250 staff at the additional sites.


Daniel Dickson, CEO of Atalian Servest UK & Ireland, is quoted by FMJ:  

“The opportunity to provide services for even more HMRC sites demonstrates the strength of the partnership we are building. HMRC is on a journey to transform the way the organisation and its people work. With our excellent track record in corporate services and contract innovation, Atalian Servest is perfectly positioned to help the organisation achieve these bold objectives.”

Tax does have to be taxing.

Tax Investigation Insurance

Having a Solar Protect Tax Investigation Insurance policy at your disposal means that should you be one of the many 1000's of businesses or individuals that are selected by HMRC each year to look into your tax affairs your own accountant (your tax return agent) can get on and defend you robustly.

You have the peace of mind knowing that your accountant's (your tax return agent) fees will be paid by the insurance without any Excess for you to find.

Please click here for details.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"