Service levels undermining HMRC Charter commitments – CIOT

The report,¹ published by HMRC, includes a report from the Charter Stakeholder Group², on which CIOT is represented. This report includes the findings of a survey³ carried out by the group in February of this year on whether tax agents and taxpayers believe HMRC are meeting their Charter standards.

The survey received more than 900 responses, with complaints about service levels a recurring theme. It found that:

• “Being responsive” scored the lowest of the Charter standards, with an average score of just 2.3 out of 10,
• “Making things easy” and “getting things right” also scored poorly, at 2.7 and 3.4 respectively,
• The remaining standards – “being aware of your personal situation”, “treating you fairly”, “recognising that someone can represent you”, “mutual respect” and “keeping your data secure” – address the context in which HMRC operates, and scored higher at 4.1, 4.8, 5.1, 5.4 and 6.5 respectively.

Richard Wild, CIOT’s Head of Tax Technical, who sits on the Charter Stakeholder Group, commented:

“Sadly, the survey reflects what we are hearing from our own members, about the everyday time wasted by the challenges they face in interacting with HMRC. Similarly, we have raised with HMRC where the behaviour of compliance staff is not meeting Charter standards, most notably recently in their high volume compliance approach to R&D tax credits.

“The common theme throughout the comments was frustration with the cost of HMRC inefficiencies to taxpayers, agents and HMRC itself. Agents also indicated a low level of confidence in HMRC’s operatives.

“The three standards on responsiveness, ease and accuracy were by far the lowest scoring, which is disappointing as between them they represent the ‘health’ of the tax system. We also noted that the Customer Experience Committee was especially concerned by these results and we are not surprised to see that complaints to HMRC have increased by nearly 14%,⁴ mainly driven by delays in HMRC’s service.

“The accuracy of guidance and information provided by HMRC continues to raise significant concerns, while many respondents felt getting a response and action via correspondence or telephone can be extremely difficult and time consuming, even for simple issues.”

The survey also showed that almost 25% of respondents are not aware of the existence of the Charter, rising to 44% among taxpayers alone, with more than 85% of respondents also believing there is a lack of accountability for HMRC’s poor performance. In their report within the Charter Report, the Independent Adjudicator also expressed the view that they cannot see that senior leaders at HMRC have a consistent objective to place the Charter at the heart of their operational and strategic decision-making.

Richard Wild added:

“Criticism was mostly aimed at HMRC as an organisation and its apparent acceptance of poor service performance. These perceptions are unlikely to improve unless HMRC, at the highest level, fully embeds the Charter into its thinking.

“The responses highlighted two key themes around HMRC accountability. Firstly, whether there is sufficient internal accountability within HMRC with the performance of HMRC staff being adequately managed. Secondly, the lack of external accountability for HMRC against the Charter.”

HMRC’s Individuals, Small Businesses and Agents (ISBA) Customer Survey 2022⁵, published today, reinforces the results of the Charter Stakeholder Group survey, with just 27% of agents giving HMRC a positive rating on “acceptability of time taken to reach end result” in 2022 (31% in 2021) and 53% a positive rating for “getting tax transactions right” (58% in 2021). Half of all agents also gave HMRC a negative rating for “acceptability of time taken to reach end result”, up from 45% in 2021, while 28% gave a negative rating for “HMRC systems preventing mistakes” (24% in 2021).

Notes for editors

1. HMRC Charter annual report: 2022 to 2023.
2. The Charter Stakeholder Group includes representatives from professional bodies, the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, and the Admin Burdens Advisory Board. It meets regularly with HMRC to provide feedback to HMRC on how it is performing against its Charter, and prepares an annual evaluation to include within HMRC’s Charter Report.
3. The survey asked respondents to give a score out of 10 for HMRC’s performance against each of the eight Charter standards, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest, as well as asking what HMRC does well, and what could be improved.  The survey received 938 responses in total, including 732 from agents, and 184 from individual and business taxpayers, while there were also 9,400 freeform comments.
4. HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts, 2022 to 2023 (p41).
5. HMRC’s Individuals, Small Businesses and Agents (ISBA) Customer Survey 2022.