Adjudicator’s Office 2019-20 report

• In 2019-20 the Adjudicator’s Office resolved 1 078 cases.
• It upheld 44% of complaints about HMRC.
• Many individuals complain to the adjudicator before exhausting the official procedures.
• HMRC is taking a long time to deliver improvements.

The Adjudicator’s Office received 3 606 enquiries in 2019-20 and took on 931 new complaints for investigation or review according to the 2020 annual report (tinyurl.com/aoreport2020). It resolved 1 078 cases and has 175 on hand. This year the average time the office took to resolve a complaint was 2.3 months. This is an improvement on 2018-19 when the period was 3.6 months and much better than the previous year when complaints took on average 7.5 months to be completed. The office deals with complaints about HMRC the Valuation Office Agency and since December 2019 the Home Office’s Windrush compensation scheme.

In her foreword ...