HMRC claims its performance is improving

In response to concerns expressed by the professional bodies about HMRC service standards HMRC director general customer services group Myrtle Lloyd recognised the impact the department’s performance has on tax advisers and accountants but said HMRC had made ‘solid progress’ in relation to performance in 2021-22 and will continue to do so in 2022-23.

She claimed: ‘We aim to answer all calls to the agent dedicated line (ADL) within ten minutes and our data shows that we rarely exceed this. If any agents are facing specific problems then I would appreciate a bit more information so that we can investigate what has gone wrong.’

Ms Lloyd added that for HMRC’s other tax lines the ‘average call wait times (year-to-date) have fallen by seven minutes between April 2021 to February 2022 and we are continuing to improve these services ...