The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals ……………………………………………………………Policy News Journal
telephone advice did not fall. To live within its budget, it released 5,600 staff from personal tax in 2014-15, reducing customer service capacity. HMRC believes it was over-optimistic about the cumulative impact of the change and had not built sufficient contingency into its plans.
The NAO makes the following recommendations in its report:
HMRC will need to learn and apply the lessons of the last five years and build realism into its assumptions if it is to provide a consistently effective service to taxpayers. It should:
a. Base future decisions on spending on an assessment of the full impact they will have on the delivery of its objectives. HMRC needs a better understanding of the direct and indirect impact of different spending decisions. When it reduces costs, it must take a realistic view of the consequences for customer service and the potential risk to tax revenue.
b. Set targets that strike a balance between its running costs and costs borne by customers. HMRC has not met its pledge to answer 90% of calls by 2015 or to answer 80% of calls within 5 minutes. It should build greater resilience in its call centre services so it meets or exceeds the service standards it sets. In setting targets for future years it should take into account its own running costs and the cost to taxpayers.
c. Be clear and open about how the configuration of its service to taxpayers will change. HMRC should be transparent about how it intends to reduce costs and what it expects of taxpayers. It should provide taxpayers with a good service for all channels.
d. Estimate the administrative burden on personal taxpayers and the voluntary sector and use this to inform its decisions. HMRC estimates the burden on businesses of complying with their tax obligations, but not on individuals or the voluntary sector. Alongside savings to customers from new services, HMRC should take into account the additional costs its savings measures could impose on taxpayers, such as the cost of increased time spent waiting on the telephone.
e. Explore how the behaviour of taxpayers might be affected in response to changes in the way HMRC intends to deliver its services. As part of this work, it should model the impact on tax compliance of planned changes to the way services are provided.
Read the full report The quality of service for personal taxpayers .
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HMRC responds to NAO criticisms of customer service 1 June 2016
HMRC says they have fully recovered from the poor standard of customer service provided in early 2015 and are now offering their best service levels in years.
The National Audit Office (NAO) recently published a report criticising HMRC for periods of poor customer service in 2015.
Responding to the report, Ruth Owen, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services said:
“We recognise that early in 2015 we didn’t provide the standard of service that people are entitled to expect and we apologised at the time. We have since fully recovered and are now offering our best service levels in years.
Over the past six months we’ve consistently answered calls in an average of six minutes, and have launched new online tax accounts and webchat for everyone, enabling customers to manage their tax affairs wherever and whenever they want.
There’s never been a better or more convenient service for our customers.”
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Policy News Journal
cipp.org.uk
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