UK customers spent a total of almost 800 years waiting for the country’s tax authorities in the last financial year, the government spending watchdog said, saying more than half of phone calls now go unanswered.
HM Revenue and Customs advisers answered just 20.5 million of 38 million calls in 2022-23, the latest year for which full data is available, the National Audit Office said in a report on Wednesday. Based on 11 months of data, it forecasts the figure to worsen in 2023-24 to 16.3 million calls answered out of 36.5 million.
A damning NAO report found that HMRC is on track to miss its correspondence targets for the fifth year in a row and that taxpayers are spending on average more than four times as long waiting to speak to a telephone adviser than in 2018. -19.
“HMRC’s telephone and correspondence services have been below target for too long,” NAO chief Gareth Davies said. “While many of the company’s digital services are performing well, they are not delivering enough value to customers, some of whom are caught in a downward service spiral.”
The setbacks are the latest illustration of the toll on public services following a decade of austerity under the Conservative government, followed by attempts to rein in public spending following record government generosity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked HMRC in 2021 to find savings of £75 million ($94 million) a year by 2024-25, a target that tax authorities have struggled to achieve. despite a staff reduction of 9 people. % for four years.
The government’s third largest department processed just 76% of requests within 15 working days in the first 11 months of 2023-24, according to the NAO. The average wait time was almost 23 minutes, up from five minutes five years earlier.
The NAO has found that tax authorities’ phone load is falling more slowly than predicted as they try to move customer service online. This is partly due to increased demand as fiscal resistance attracts more people to the tax system and to more complex inquiries, while on average advisors have to spend more time processing each call.
In recognition of HMRC’s efforts to achieve its targets, the Treasury on Monday announced £51 million in new funding for tax authorities to maintain its telephone lines. This will mean that “everyone can be confident that there will be someone on the phone ready to talk,” Finance Minister Nigel Huddlestone said in a statement.