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HMRC Call-Handling Woes 'Cost Taxpayers £97m'

Call-handling delays by HMRC has cost personal taxpayers £97m in the last financial year, according to the Government spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said staff cuts at a time when HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was rolling out its digital strategy resulted in poor customer service.

Its report said: "The quality of service provided by HMRC for personal taxpayers collapsed in 2014-15 and the first seven months of 2015-16 when average call waiting times tripled.

"Services have subsequently improved following the recruitment of additional staff but whether this performance is sustainable depends on HMRC achieving successful outcomes from its programme to make tax digital."

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The NAO said HMRC got its timing badly wrong in trying to move more taxpayers online - away from telephone and postal contact - with too few customer service workers left to cope with demand for help ahead of key tax deadlines.

The issue was among many to hound HMRC's boss at the time, Dame Lin Homer, who retired last month amid criticism the body had not done enough to tackle evasion during her four-year tenure.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) estimated call charges at £10m, the value of customers' time spent waiting to speak to an adviser at £66m and value of time spent talking to advisers at £21m - a total of £97m and significantly up on £63m two tax years earlier.

Average waiting times peaked at 47 minutes for self-assessment callers during the deadline week for paper returns in October 2015, the NAO said.

It added that when compared to HMRC's data on the annual cost of answering calls, the increased cost to customers was £4 for every £1 saved by HMRC over the annual period.

Head of customer service at HMRC, Ruth Owen, said: "We recognise that early in 2015 we didn't provide the standard of service that people are entitled to expect and we apologised at the time.

"We have since fully recovered and are now offering our best service levels in years.

"Over the past six months we've consistently answered calls in an average of six minutes, and have launched new online tax accounts and webchat for everyone, enabling customers to manage their tax affairs wherever and whenever they want.

"There's never been a better or more convenient service for our customers (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) ."