According to the new report from the National Audit Office (NAO), HMRC has not yet done enough to raise awareness of its digital services or understand how they may or may not meet customers’ needs.
It said the move to digital has not relieved pressure on traditional services as much as the tax body expected.
It found many customer calls are caused by HMRC itself for reasons including delays and customers chasing progress.
The NAO suggested that taxpayers were being “let down”.
Some 4.7 million hours were spent by HMRC customer service advisers answering and handling calls in 2022-23, down from five million in 2019-20.
Advisers answered 22% fewer calls in 2022-23 than in 2019-20, but those that were answered took more time to handle on average.
The time taken to handle each call answered by an adviser also went up from just over 11 minutes to more than 13 minutes.
But call handling times could be increasing because HMRC’s strategy is focused on pushing customers with simple queries like checking tax codes towards its online portal, leaving agents free to speak with customers on the phone about more complex matters.
In an effort to cut costs though, the tax authority is planning to reduce the number of customer services staff, the report said.
It found that at the beginning of this financial year, HMRC needed to reduce the number of call handlers by 14% within the next 12 months to make sure it doesn’t exceed its budget.
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