Corporate report

HMRC Charter annual report: April 2021 to March 2022

Published 18 July 2022

Message from the Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary, Jim Harra

HMRC’s vision is to be a trusted, modern tax and customs department. The experience our customers have, and the quality of their interactions with HMRC, are central to this vision – and crucial to the effectiveness of the tax system. We define the service and standards that customers can expect when interacting with us in our HMRC Charter, which was refreshed in November 2020, and are committed to embodying its principles in all our activity. This report, published by HMRC’s Commissioners and provided to us by HMRC’s Customer Experience Committee, sets out our progress in meeting the Charter standards during 2021 to 2022. I’m grateful for the continued support of the Customer Experience Committee in helping us move towards our vision.

We’re proud to have played a vital role over the last two years in the government’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular supporting millions of jobs through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Support Scheme. As we did so, we had to make choices about the work we prioritised to protect our essential services and the livelihoods of customer groups who required our support.

These decisions meant that customer service levels fell below where we wanted them to be for most of the year. I understand the frustrations and difficulties experienced by customers and agents who have been waiting longer than normal for us to deal with their individual enquiries and acknowledge the comments of the Charter Stakeholder Group in this report, who noted that customer service was their greatest concern through 2021 to 2022. Although we have made solid progress towards returning to normal operating levels and made some significant improvements to our processes, in line with the Charter, to improve our customers’ experience when dealing with HMRC, I recognise that this progress risks being overshadowed by the impact of customer service levels in the last year.

Whilst acknowledging the challenges with customer service levels, this year’s report also sets out the progress we have made to embed the Charter standards and improve customer experience, and the steps we are taking with the support of the Customer Experience Committee in the coming year to keep us on track towards our vision in building a trusted, modern tax and customs department.

Going into financial year 2022 to 2023, I don’t underestimate the challenges and uncertainties ahead of us in the current economic and political environment. To successfully navigate these, it’s vital that we maintain public trust and work hard to provide a supportive customer experience. That’s why I remain committed to making further progress against the standards set out in our Charter and to keeping our customers at the heart of our transformation plans. These include rolling out Making Tax Digital to smaller VAT-registered businesses and our new Contact Engagement Programme, which is designed to help us deal with customer enquiries faster and more accurately.

As we take the next steps towards our vision, I welcome the Customer Experience Committee’s continued support and oversight in embedding the Charter in all that we do.

Jim Harra
HMRC First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive

Foreword by Chair of the Customer Experience Committee, Juliette Scott

HMRC acts as the UK’s tax, payment and customs authority, collecting the money that pays for the UK’s public services. It is HMRC’s job to make sure its customers pay the right taxes and receive the right payments, that it is easy for customers to do this, and importantly, that customers are treated fairly. HMRC’s work touches the lives of almost everyone in the country. The Customer Experience Committee continues to advise and challenge HMRC on customer experience related issues, supporting HMRC’s ambition for a better customer experience as part of its vision to be a trusted, modern tax and customs department.

During 2021 to 2022 the committee remained alive to the challenges with HMRC’s customer service performance levels and offered advice and guidance on its recovery plans. We understood that customer service was below where HMRC both needed and wanted it to be for much of the year, a result of HMRC’s continued role in supporting the government’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the increasing volume of correspondence received throughout this period.

The lower performance on customer service is reflected in the customer performance measures for this year (appendix 7) including the annual customer survey for individuals, small businesses and agents which showed that the 2021 ratings of customer experience have fallen, compared to 2020, across all customer groups; and the Charter Stakeholder Group’s contribution to this report (section 3 and appendix 3).

The committee was supportive of the actions HMRC took to improve service levels by the end of the 2021 to 2022 financial year, but also recognise that customer service levels are likely to continue to be a challenge as we move into 2022 to 2023. HMRC will need to remain agile and flexible to external factors that make for a difficult operating environment.

This is the first full year of reporting against the current HMRC Charter and I have seen good progress this year in embedding and living the Charter standards in HMRC’s business operations, which includes HMRC’s delivery of the COVID-19 support schemes. I am pleased with HMRC’s focus over the last year in improving communication with customers, both with the introduction of new writing guidelines and the review of over 1,000 customer letters and items of guidance.

HMRC has continued to undertake a range of activities to raise colleagues’ awareness of the Charter and the principles of support for customers who need extra help which underpin the Charter, whilst supporting colleagues to develop the skills they need to deliver the Charter standards. This includes the continued application of the Compliance Professional Standards to drive up the service quality customers can expect from HMRC and ensuring we get things right the first time with the progress made within Customer Services Group to fully integrate the Charter into the day-to-day operational work of colleagues.

The Customer Experience Committee has agreed four broad areas to support and advise HMRC on during 2022 to 2023:

• keeping the customer view at the forefront of HMRC’s short, medium and long-term transformation activities, such as the Single Customer Account
• continuing to build improvements to the way HMRC communicates and interacts with customers, and learning from the successful changes introduced through 2021 to 2022
• continuing efforts to bring the Charter standards to life across the organisation and strengthening HMRC’s focus on improving customer experience
• quantifying the improvements to customer experience and putting in place measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of HMRC activity in tackling the systemic drivers of a poor customer experience

I appreciate the continued support and recognition of the HMRC Board on the importance of the HMRC Charter and see delivery against the standards as one of their ongoing priorities.

Lastly, I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their hard work and enthusiasm, as well as my appreciation to former members who departed the committee during 2021 to 2022. I look forward to welcoming new members in 2022 and 2023 and continuing to lead the committee as it continues to provide the very best advice and guidance in support of HMRC’s vision and ambition to be a trusted and modern tax and customs department.

Juliette Scott
HMRC Non-Executive Director

1. Introduction

Why the HMRC Charter matters

The HMRC Charter is core to HMRC’s vision of being a trusted, modern tax and customs department, setting the service standards and behaviours that customers should expect. It explains how HMRC will get things right, make things easy for customers, and be fair, responsive and aware of customers’ personal situations, including recognising that customers may want someone else to represent them and that HMRC will keep their data secure.

The Charter is supported by further principles of support for customers who need extra help.

Assessing HMRC’s performance against the Charter in 2021 to 2022

This report is provided by HMRC’s Customer Experience Committee, which is made up of members of the executive and non-executive directors of HMRC, the Independent Adjudicator, and independent advisers recruited for their expertise in customer experience.

The assessment of HMRC’s performance against the Charter within this report incorporates feedback from the following:

• the Customer Experience Committee, responsible for overseeing HMRC’s overall performance against the Charter standards, who provide an overview of improvement activities to embed the Charter into HMRC’s day-to-day operations and processes
• the Independent Adjudicator who provides an overall independent assessment of HMRC’s performance in section 3
• the Charter Stakeholder Group who provide both an overall assessment of HMRC’s performance in section 3, and a commentary on HMRC’s performance against each Charter Standard in appendix 3

In addition, HMRC uses a wide range of data sources to obtain feedback and insight from its customers on how it is performing. These include customer experience surveys (which customers are invited to complete when they have used HMRC’s telephony or digital services) and structured independent annual surveys commissioned by HMRC.

At the start of financial year 2021 to 2022, HMRC updated its performance framework in line with its new strategic objectives. This performance framework also aligns to the Charter, enabling HMRC to monitor performance against certain Charter standards including customer satisfaction and Net Easy. HMRC publishes monthly summaries of how it has performed on GOV.UK.

2. Overview of HMRC performance against the Charter

Customer service

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC continued its crucial role in the government’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme as well as introducing many other measures to help customers through unprecedented circumstances.

The choices HMRC had to make throughout the year in order to prioritise support for customers through the pandemic had an inevitable effect on customer service levels. HMRC acknowledges that service levels were below where it wanted them to be, and stakeholders and customers reflected on their dissatisfaction with service levels in their feedback to the department.

During the first half of 2021 to 2022, HMRC stabilised its phone service and prioritised tax credits and Child Benefit services, reflecting the economic hardship faced during the pandemic, while maintaining customs services well within targets and supporting the smooth running of the COVID-19 support schemes until they closed in October 2021. As easements for various regimes and benefits were withdrawn, HMRC ensured that customer guidance was updated at the right time to support customers to get things right.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC’s post workload increased significantly, driven by homeworking expenses and PPI repayment claims. These factors, combined with the prioritisation decisions HMRC made during the pandemic, meant that post performance was below where HMRC wanted it to be for most of the year. Again, this situation was also reflected in feedback from the Charter Stakeholder Group who advised the primary concern of complaints from their members related to unacceptable turnaround times in post and other forms of correspondence (appendix 3).

Once the bulk of the COVID-19 support schemes activity had been delivered, HMRC was able to move more resources back into core tax activities. During December 2021 HMRC also reduced the hours on some telephony services, enabling colleagues to focus on processing Corporation Tax repayments and VAT post which had been areas of concern for customers and agents. As a result, by the end of March 2022 HMRC’s post stock was well within the usual volumes for a typical month.

Overall, the choices HMRC made during the year to prioritise essential services and support COVID-19 schemes notably impacted HMRC’s service levels and this was clear in customer feedback and an increase in customer complaints through 2021 to 2022. However, by working in an agile and flexible way, deploying people and resources effectively to address emerging priorities and shifting customer needs, HMRC made solid progress towards normal operating levels over the course of the financial year.

This challenging operational environment and the impact on customer service levels meant that, HMRC received 80,216 new complaints in financial year 2021 to 2022 compared to 78,542 the previous year, a 2% increase, driven by increased complaints around delays experienced by customers.

The Charter Stakeholder Group (see appendix 3 for membership) meets regularly to provide HMRC with feedback on how it is performing against the Charter. In their overall assessment of HMRC’s performance in 2021 to 2022 (in section 3 of this report) the group noted that ‘customer service levels remain the single greatest concern, overshadowing any particular positive or negative behaviours’.

Each year HMRC commissions independent customer surveys for five customer groups; individuals, small businesses, agents, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.

Results from the 2021 annual customer surveys show that customer experience ratings fell back following increases in 2020 across all customer groups and are now closer to pre-pandemic levels. Survey results for agents fell below pre-pandemic levels.   

The proportions of customers rating their overall experience of interacting positively with HMRC in 2021 were:

• 62% of individuals (68% in 2020) 
• 76% of small businesses (82% in 2020) 
• 57% of mid-sized businesses 63% in 2020) 
• 83% of large businesses (91% in 2020) 
• 48% of agents (61% in 2020)

Large businesses were also asked about their relationship with their Customer Compliance Managers (CCM).  Although this result also peaked in 2020, it remained stable this year with 95% of large businesses positively rating their overall relationship with their CCM, compared to 96% in 2020.

Full details of the survey results for individuals, small businesses and agents are in appendix 4, details for mid-sized businesses are in appendix 5 and large businesses are in appendix 6.

HMRC invites all customers using telephony, webchat and digital services to comment on their experience by completing a customer experience survey. Approximately 9.5 million customers were invited to complete a survey during 2021 to 2022. HMRC did not set formal performance targets for customer service for the financial year 2021 to 2022. However, overall customer satisfaction with phone, webchat and digital services was consistently high throughout 2021 to 2022, with 82.0% of customers stating they were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with HMRC’s phone, webchat and digital services – reaching a high of 84.3% in August 2021.

Despite this high overall proportion of customer satisfaction, more customers were satisfied with digital services at 83.4% than telephony at 65.5%. Customers noted long waiting times and not being given the information they need as reasons for the lower satisfaction with telephony. This view was also reflected in comments from the Charter Stakeholder Group (appendix 3) who advised they received constant complaints from their members about HMRC’s telephone line performance during 2021 to 2022.

HMRC’s Stakeholder Engagement Research provides insights into the views of important stakeholder groups (such as parliamentarians, agents, business stakeholders etc.), identifies trends and changes in attitudes, and informs HMRC on ways to improve the way they engage with these stakeholders to better fulfil its strategic objectives. Stakeholders’ perceptions of HMRC in 2021 to 2022 remained strong, but after increases in 2020, all three of the main measures on favorability, trust and performance of the UK’s tax authority had fallen.

The biggest driver of favorability towards HMRC is its performance as the UK’s tax authority, which while still strong had declined since last year. For those stakeholders who said HMRC is performing badly on this measure, poor customer service and responsiveness remain their main concerns. Stakeholders were concerned about how promptly staff deal with issues and there had also been drops in perceptions of staff understanding and responding to issues.

While scores had declined compared to last year, most stakeholders still agreed HMRC is an organisation they can trust.

HMRC’s communication and engagement remain highly regarded and stakeholders were particularly positive about the courtesy and professionalism of staff. Working relationships were found to be an important driver of HMRC’s reputation among stakeholders and most remained satisfied with their working relationship. Most stakeholders described themselves as critical friends and there was a small increase in the numbers describing themselves as advocates.

The unique nature of HMRC’s role makes it difficult to compare these results to other organisations. The Institute of Customer Service publishes a bi-annual UK Customer Service Index (UKCSI) in January and July each year. This independent survey provides a useful industry-wide perspective of trends when viewed alongside other customer experience indicators, although the sample size is small and therefore statistically significant trends are more difficult to identify. In the January 2022 UKCSI HMRC saw a slight reduction in satisfaction rating which is a deviation from the previous year’s upwards trend. Customer satisfaction around HMRC’s complaint handling and outcomes were positive areas of improvement; whilst there was a slight downward trend in customers’ trust of HMRC.

Customer experience

Customer service levels are an important element of customer experience and in particular the Charter standard to ‘be responsive’. HMRC continues to ensure a strong focus is given to improving customer experience by delivering against Charter standards, including the 2021 to 2022 priorities of the Customer Experience Committee noted in last year’s report, which were:

• ensuring customer experience remains at the forefront of HMRC’s transformation activities
• improving the way HMRC communicates with customers
• continuing efforts to embed the Charter standards, build capability and move to a more customer focused culture

The next section sets out the important work HMRC did during 2021 to 2022 to improve customer experience and how that work links to the Charter standards.

Ensuring customer experience remains at the forefront of HMRC’s transformation activities

Charter standards: Getting things right; making things easy; being responsive

The most effective way of ensuring everyone pays the right tax is through the overall design of the tax system. HMRC’s approach is to make it easier for customers to pay their taxes by making it hard to make errors or to avoid and evade tax. While it is everyone’s responsibility to get their own tax right, a well-designed system should prevent non-compliance before it can occur by making things easier for customers to navigate. When developing new digital services, HMRC uses testing panels for qualitative research to understand customers’ needs and how best to design services so that they are easy to use and help customers to get things right.

The funding HMRC received as part of the government’s latest spending review settlement provides certainty that its long-term transformational programmes such as the Single Customer Account, Making Tax Digital and Unique Customer Record can continue. This work is critical to HMRC achieving its vision and to improve customer experience, as insight suggests customer experience is consistently higher for customers who interact with HMRC digitally.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC made the following changes to its processes and systems to make things easy, help customers get things right and enable HMRC to be responsive including:

• creating and testing a new service dashboard to give agents accurate information on HMRC’s performance following feedback and requests from the agent community, enabling them to identify when they can expect a response – HMRC plans to publish this new dashboard in early 2022 to 2023

• providing an improved Adviser User Interface (AUI) to over 10,000 Customer Service Group advisers on core helplines – this enables colleagues to better support customers by understanding their enquiry status and previous contact with HMRC, and to quickly identify relevant guidance

• introducing ‘prompts’ to digital systems which promote relevant information and guidance or prevent the submission of information which appears inconsistent with other information – for example, trialling prompts to customers in receipt of COVID-19 support scheme grants to account for these payments properly in their tax return

• adapting the Tax Credit system so that all Full Time Non-Advance Education (FTNAE) changes are made daily, meaning that changes are applied to customers’ awards within a few days of them contacting HMRC – previously changes recorded between April and September were not applied to customers awards until early September

• adding a Digital Assistant to Self Assessment pages to enable customers to quickly resolve simple questions in the approach to the filing deadline without needing to speak to an adviser, with plans to extend this facility to the Employers Helpline and Online Services Helpdesk during 2022 to 2023

• providing a Dropbox facility for childcare services customers to easily submit forms of evidence to support their application, saving customer postal costs and resulting in a quicker decision on applications

• introducing a new online form to enable Corporation Tax customers to quickly inform HMRC when their company becomes dormant

• becoming the first government department in the world to introduce an Open Banking payment service for Self Assessment in March 2021 and rolling it out progressively to all taxes, creating a secure, efficient, and seamless single journey for customers to pay tax that is due

• continuing to support VAT customers moving to Making Tax Digital, with over 1.7 million businesses now using Making Tax Digital compatible software to keep records digitally and submit their tax information to HMRC

• continuing to develop the Single Customer Account and Unique Customer records transformation programmes which will improve customer experience and make it easier for customers to interact and access their tax and benefits online – whichever service they need to use

• engaging with customers and stakeholders to develop a new compliance requirement for large businesses to notify uncertain tax treatments; this feedback was used to refine the policy design, guidance and customer service, mitigating stakeholder concerns and linking to HMRC’s overall approach of seeking to identify and resolve potential tax disputes early

Improving the way HMRC communicates with customers

Charter standards: Getting things right; making things easy

A central principle of the Charter is that HMRC helps customers to meet their tax responsibilities. This includes giving customers clear, accurate information, and making communications and guidance easy to read so that customers take the right action, ideally first-time.

HMRC made strong progress during 2021 to 2022 to ensure the Charter standards are built into customer communications. This included:

• introducing a single consistent set of HMRC customer writing guidelines for colleagues to ensure letters are clear and easy to read and action and show empathy to customers
• improving over 1,000 letters and factsheets to make them easier for the customer to understand and improve the language and tone
• launching an introductory pack for opening Income Tax Self Assessment compliance checks, which aims to build customers confidence and trust from the outset by being transparent about the need for a check and making customers aware of support available
• developing and launching learning activities for customer service and compliance colleagues to embed the customer writing guidelines into their letters to customers
• providing a letter writing toolkit to support debt management colleagues to provide clarity in how and what to communicate to customers during what can be a difficult time
• developing an evidence-based customer communications pilot study focused on Self Assessment for first time filers (to be launched in spring 2022) which will measure the effectiveness and impact of customer communications

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC also improved its guidance for customers to make it easy for them to get things right. This included:

• expanding HMRC’s YouTube channel with new videos covering Inheritance Tax, a guide to compliance checks and a welsh language version of a video to support customers submitting their first Self Assessment tax return
• updating error code guidance for customers using the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system to enable them to resolve many errors without needing to speak to an adviser
• making further improvements to forms, letters and factsheets to raise customers awareness of compliance checks and help them understand the compliance process
• publishing new information on GOV.UK outlining the steps young people need to take in order to access their Child Trust Funds once they mature
• providing comprehensive guidance to help employers of veterans in their first year of civilian employment to take advantage of the government’s National Insurance holiday
• improving the Plastic Packaging Tax guidance published on GOV.UK on an ongoing basis, to address key feedback and support customers’ understanding of what packaging is in or out of the scope of the tax
• launching personalised interactive guidance to enable customers to quickly and easily understand if they need to pay Inheritance Tax or whether additional income they receive needs to be declared
• publishing a Health and Social Care Levy guidance page to tell customers everything they need to know and the actions they need to take to prepare for the Health and Social Care Levy
• made improvements to Form P87 (Claim Income Tax relief for your employment expenses) by allowing claims for multiple years to be made on one form; this improved customer experience by making things easier and enabled HMRC to automate processing, meaning customers receive their repayments quicker

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC established a new Intermediaries Directorate. This new business area is dedicated to improving HMRC’s services for agents, upholding the standards HMRC expects from agents, and leading work on customer protection issues arising from harmful conduct by intermediaries.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC concluded a consultation on whether to make Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) compulsory for tax advisers, and a definition of tax advice. Stakeholder feedback indicated that compulsory PII on its own would not be an effective mechanism to raise standards across the market, nor would it have a meaningful impact on consumer protection and the ability for consumers to secure redress. In response to this feedback during 2022 to 2023 HMRC will consult stakeholders on options to improve the wider regulatory framework that supports standards in tax advice and on ways to tackle the high costs to taxpayers of claiming tax refunds.

Providing support to customers who need extra help

Charter standards: Being aware of your personal situation; making things easy

HMRC has established processes for providing extra support to customers who may experience difficulties understanding what they need to do as they go through life events, either because of confidence and capability issues to access HMRC systems, or a disability or mental health concern. HMRC continuously reviews these processes to ensure it continues to meet the needs of customers.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC’s Extra Support Teams provided additional help to over 80,000 customers. This support included helping customers with their tax queries, complete their tax returns and deal with their outstanding debt. Feedback from customers was positive with 98% rating the service as excellent. In addition, HMRC provided advice to compliance colleagues dealing with complex compliance activity to recommend extra support and reasonable adjustments that can be put in place when their customers need it.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC focused its efforts on increasing customers’ awareness of the extra help available to them, building colleagues’ capability to identify and support customers and improving its internal processes so customers have a better experience. This included:

• strengthening HMRC’s links with the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS), to provide support to customers and signpost the support available
• updating and publishing new guidance on GOV.UK to raise awareness of the support customers can access
• improving colleagues’ access to learning by consolidating guidance and learning products relating to customers who need extra help into one easily accessible location
• developing new help cards to support colleagues to identify and deal empathetically with customers who may be at risk of self-harming or taking their own life at the earliest opportunity and to provide reasonable adjustments in relation to tax matters
• informing customers of the independent help and support available from VCS organisations within HMRC’s new compliance introductory pack

An important part of supporting customers who need extra help and making things easy is ensuring services are accessible for all customers. During 2021 to 2022 HMRC continued to develop its understanding of the barriers some customers may face when accessing digital services, and the practical actions HMRC can take to support customers when designing and improving services. This included engaging with the voluntary and community sector to better understand the accessibility challenges encountered by customers who need digital support or are digitally excluded, and to raise awareness of the support available.

Support to customers managing debt

Charter standards: Treating you fairly; being aware of your personal situation

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC continued to take a proportionate approach to managing debt and treating customers with debt fairly, balancing the need to bring in revenue for public services, and tackling those deliberately not paying, while supporting customers who needed it. Debt collection activity was paused for a number of months during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but HMRC made a phased return to debt collection activity from May 2021 and continued to provide an enhanced level of support to customers, allowing them to recover their finances where necessary. For customers who need extra help this included:

• adding links to GOV.UK setting out the Breathing Space debt respite scheme, which provides customers with problem debt up to 60 days without creditor action while they seek debt advice from registered debt advisers
• clearly setting out the offer of ‘Time to Pay’ where necessary, which is a longstanding policy available to all businesses and individuals who are in temporary financial difficulty and are unable to pay their tax in full on time, allowing many customers flexibility to agree longer periods to repay as appropriate
• adding a new YouTube video, ‘Help if you can’t pay your tax bill’, to the compliance check series of videos to raise awareness of the support available for customers
• supporting the design of a cross-government pilot for vulnerable customers with overlapping debt, to explore the benefits and feasibility of sharing customers vulnerability status across central and local government
• improving operational processes and systems across different parts of HMRC (for example, providing a smooth handover and closer working between compliance, extra support and debt management teams) to provide seamless service and support for customers
• providing debt colleagues with training, guidance and support to build their capability to educate and support customers managing an outstanding debt with HMRC

Handling and learning from customer complaints

Charter standards: Getting things right; treating you fairly

HMRC aims to provide an easy and accessible complaints process. When customers experience difficulties, HMRC aims to reach the right outcome as quickly as possible, acknowledging when it has made a mistake and the customer impact of that mistake, and then learning from this customer feedback.

How HMRC handles and responds to complaints is fundamental to the delivery of the Charter and HMRC works collaboratively with the Adjudicator to learn from complaints.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC received 80,216 new complaints, a 2% increase compared to the previous year due to increased complaints about delays experienced by customers. HMRC took on average 29.6 days to handle a new complaint compared to 16.3 days last year.

HMRC’s activity to improve complaint handling during 2021 to 2022 included:

• continuously improving customer communications by updating the Complain about HMRC pages on GOV.UK and keeping customers informed on the progress of their complaint using text message and letters
• continuing to use the established Complaints Insight Board to drive forward changes to practice, policy, culture and learning from complaints – the board is now attended by colleagues from the Department of Work and Pensions, allowing shared learning from insight and complaints that affect both organisations
• piloting a new complaints customer exit survey, where direct customer feedback will provide actionable insight into the ease of making a complaint and the quality of complaint handling – this survey will be made available to customers during 2022 to 2023
• proactively working with the Adjudicator to provide focussed support to customers who need extra help and who approach the Adjudicator before completing HMRC’s internal complaint process

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC reviewed its strategy for handling complaints, aiming to deliver a high-quality complaint handling service that meets HMRC’s Charter standards, strategic objectives and vision, whilst supporting the Parliamentary and Health Service’s (PHSO’s) ambition to embed complaints standards across government. The strategy includes:

• investment in a new case management system called CHART (Complaints Handling, Analysis and Reporting Tool) which is being jointly developed with the Adjudicator’s office to provide better categorisation and learning from complaints
• developing new complaint handling targets which aligns complaint handling performance to Charter standards, rather than focusing purely on numbers
• improving colleague capability and communication of complaints by moving towards a culture where customer dissatisfaction is treated as valuable feedback and an opportunity to improve the service provided
• continuing to work with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and other government departments to develop a shared vision for complaint handling through the UK Central Government Complaint Standards, which will set out a unified set of principles for colleagues across government to follow and provide a benchmark to help leaders learn from complaints

Continuing to support services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Charter standards: Getting things right; making things easy; treating you fairly

During the first half of 2021 to 2022, HMRC remained at the heart of the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response, administering ongoing financial support schemes throughout the first six months of the financial year. HMRC continued to engage with a broad range of stakeholders, groups and panels, using feedback received from thousands of customers to shape policies, guidance and communications.

HMRC proactively communicated with agents and customers ahead of the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) fourth and fifth grants between March and September 2021 using emails, social media and videos (one such video was viewed over 150k times) to help customers prepare to make their claims.

By introducing personal claim dates and issuing personal invitations to customers eligible to claim, HMRC was able to better manage customer demand which in turn improved the overall customer experience, leading to improvements in call waiting times (which reduced by over 90% compared to earlier SEISS grants), and improvements in webchat responses.

Customer satisfaction scores increased (compared to earlier grants) with 82% of customers finding the process easy or very easy, and 85% satisfied or very satisfied with the overall process.

HMRC recognised the continued impact of COVID-19 on the capacity of some agents and taxpayers to meet their obligations in time for the Self Assessment deadline of 31 January 2022. In early January 2022, HMRC announced it would waive late filing and late payment penalties for Self Assessment customers for one month, allowing extra time to complete 2020 to 2021 tax returns and pay any tax due. HMRC shared details of this easement as early as possible in response to customer and stakeholder feedback the previous year that it made the announcement too late to alleviate worry and pressure for many customers.

Data Protection

Charter standards: Recognising someone can represent you, keeping your data secure

HMRC remains firmly committed to achieving compliance with data protection laws to fully protect its data, including personal data of customers and the workforce. HMRC holds vast amounts of data, which is vital to its core functions, and has significant responsibilities to ensure it holds this data in a way that is secure, appropriate, protected and meets the requirements of the law.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC continued to significantly increase the governance, planning and resource required to meet this challenge. This included improving risk management, ongoing IT and data remediation programmes and continuing to roll out improved training to all colleagues. The work is overseen by a senior delivery board, reporting directly to ExCom, and data protection continues to be managed as a strategic risk. HMRC has committed to sustained increased activity into 2023 and beyond, subject to funding. The age of HMRC’s IT systems and infrastructure has meant it continues to experience challenges in meeting UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) requirements – HMRC are taking further steps to fix this by moving to a smaller number of modern, resilient, better supported IT platforms, modernising its cyber defences and enforcing data standards.

HMRC has an ongoing programme of work to review several hundred systems to identify, prioritise and treat any data protection issues. This includes the ongoing development of identity verification and authentication services to protect customers’ online identities, aiming to balance making things easy for customers with setting the bar high enough to deter fraudsters.

HMRC continues to record, report, address and learn from all data-related incidents involving HMRC data, reporting incidents to the Information Commissioner and any individuals concerned as required.

This year HMRC introduced a revised Form 64-8 (Authorise an Agent) that is designed to give customers a better experience and improve data protection. This enables customers to state which tax regime they want their agent to access. The form also includes new guidance for customers on how to fill in the form correctly and what data they are agreeing to share with their agent.

Continuing efforts to embed the Charter standards, build capability and move to a more customer focused culture

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC continued to increase colleagues’ awareness of the Charter and support them to develop the skills they need to deliver the Charter standards. During the first quarter of the year, results from an internal staff survey suggested that 74% of HMRC colleagues knew about the Charter and 33% believed it influenced their work. While HMRC recognises there is more to do, these results provide a valuable baseline from which HMRC can measure its progress in embedding the Charter standards across the organisation.

During 2021 to 2022 HMRC continued to build capability and improve quality by ensuring colleagues have the right level of expertise in handling customers’ queries. Activities include:

• strengthening the application of HMRC’s Compliance Professional Standards in compliance activities, and ensuring managers and their teams have the right skills to deliver the Charter standards – this includes developing new measures of professionalism and customer experience to demonstrate the impact of these professional standards and starting to deliver learning on Compliance Professional Standards to over 4,600 tax professionals recruited during 2021 to 2022, who will continue their learning and professional development into 2022 to 2023
• establishing a programme of work to embed the Charter into the day-to-day operational work of customer service colleagues, including ensuring the Charter is consistently included in conversations with colleagues and leaders so they can make clear links between the Charter, how they work and the decisions they take
• introducing an internal skills tool developed around the Charter standards to support colleagues to link their learning to the standards – over 14,000 colleagues have used the tool with an overall satisfaction score of 4.5 out of 5
• developing a new Charter learning product, ‘Living the Charter’, to increase colleague awareness and understanding of the HMRC Charter and HMRC’s commitment to its customers – this will be rolled out to colleagues during 2022 to 2023
• developing a communications workshop for HMRC policy professionals to demonstrate the importance of communications, audience research and insight to policy development processes to ensure they target audiences with the right messages at the right time and make things easy for customers

3. Overall independent assessments

Independent Adjudicator – Helen Megarry

The Adjudicator’s Office fully supports the Charter. The Charter represents a huge opportunity for HMRC to anchor good practice across its services. A principle-based approach allows the Department to build both strategically and at the local level.

The Charter is still relatively new, so it is difficult to comment in forensic detail about success. But we have seen some good practice, highlighted below.

We believe that embedding the Charter is still a work in progress. We see evidence of it being understood and implemented at senior levels but that a cultural shift of the kind embodied by the Charter is not there yet across HMRC’s huge workforce. Greater emphasis should be put on embedding the principles in a way that all staff can embrace. We understand that HMRC has developed and will roll out a new Charter learning product to its staff during 2022 to 2023 which hopefully will support this.

Evidence of our embracing the Charter and what it can do can be seen in the way we have linked the categorisation of complaints to the Charter principles. This is one of the ways that we are aware of where the Charter and its success can be (broadly speaking) objectively tested. We anticipate that the data, and therefore evidence of where the Charter is succeeding and where more work is required, will be understood by senior leaders. The challenge is to convert that into learning that staff across HMRC understand and see the benefit of.

We have been asked to specifically comment against each of the principles. During 2021 to 2022 we changed our data categorisation approach to provide this additional insight. Once we have sufficient data sets which we can compare and contrast, we will be able to comment more substantially. We will be able to do this in detail at the next review.

However, we have seen some very good practice. HMRC’s approach to policy implementation stands out. Until around a year ago, the response to concerns we raised about the implementation of policy was that it was difficult to implement new and challenging policy – that landed on HMRC – in a customer-focused way. This approach is changing. We have seen good evidence of teams and staff taking what is a challenging policy to implement and finding ways to make it user friendly for HMRC’s customers. And it seems that compliance has increased significantly through being more customer focused.

This perhaps highlights the value of the Charter. It not only serves the customer – but also serves HMRC’s core function of collecting revenue.

More locally, we have found that we are sighted on issues as they develop, rather than when we spot them. This allows us to start thinking about our approach and to communicate with our people about issues that may develop.

We are also impressed by the work compliance teams are doing shaping the Charter into actionable objectives. This is perhaps the only example we have seen of complaint teams fully embracing the opportunity the Charter provides. We would like to see the approach widened. Anchoring practice to the principles will not only embed the approach but, we firmly believe, allow complaint teams to model good practice for the wider department.

In summary, the Charter is a golden opportunity for HMRC to really change and become an example to the civil service about the value of good service. We hope that in the next year we will see greater emphasis on ‘selling’ the Charter to HMRC staff in all areas. The worry is that this will become an initiative that withers on the vine. We know – from the examples above – that it has huge, fundamental value.

Charter Stakeholder Group – see Appendix 3 for representative members

We have considered HMRC’s performance during 2021 to 2022 against the Charter. Our feedback reflects the fact that we hear more from our members where things go wrong, but the volume of negative feedback has increased considerably. There are common and recurring themes in this feedback, indicating the presence of several deep-rooted issues.

We recognise that HMRC has continued to deliver the COVID-19 support schemes through much of 2021 to 2022, as well as implementing processes for the UK’s exit from the EU. On these aspects we consider it has generally performed well, although it has meant diversion of resources, so that other services have been adversely affected.

In appendix 3 of this report we address each of the Charter Standards, but customer service levels remain the single greatest concern, overshadowing any particular positive or negative behaviours that we address. There is a perception that HMRC hasn’t ‘bounced back’ from the pandemic as quickly as other organisations, or as quickly as those working within the department would have hoped. We were disappointed that HMRC again chose not to set itself performance targets for 2021 to 2022, even to the extent that they reflected the operational uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reduced opening hours of phone lines, and closing the webchat service, make it even more important that callers can obtain a resolution during their first HMRC contact. Unfortunately, this seems decreasingly likely, with call handlers unable to deal with the issue there and then, ending the call or creating a referral for a specialist to deal with, which leads to delays and non-existent call-backs. Unless a taxpayer is large enough to have a Customer Compliance Manager, it continues to be very difficult to engage with HMRC on a technical matter.

This leads to another area of significant concern – the lack of consequences for HMRC if it fails to meet the Charter standards. For taxpayers and their agents there can be severe penalties (financial and behavioural) for failing to get something right, or to meet a particular deadline. There are no such consequences for HMRC, and we feel the Charter will only be truly effective if there is greater HMRC accountability for meeting the Charter standards, without taxpayers having to raise individual complaints to obtain redress.

We recognise the effort HMRC is putting into embedding the Charter throughout the organisation’s culture, and we think that it can be more transparent around how it is doing this. We welcome the steps taken to give greater prominence to the Charter in HMRC’s correspondence and its compliance activities, and the development of a new learning product, ‘Living the Charter’. We would like this initiative to be mandatory for all staff as a regular part of their training, rather than being self-selective, or just for new joiners. We would also like to see consideration of the Charter built into policy development, as new policies often fail to meet the Charter standards.

Perhaps due to the backdrop of poor HMRC service standards, we have received limited feedback to indicate how successful the Charter has been in changing the day-to-day experience of dealing with HMRC, though the feedback we have received suggests that the standards are not being consistently applied.

One of the few positives from the pandemic has been the increased engagement between HMRC and stakeholders. This has produced many beneficial outcomes and we are keen that this collaborative relationship should continue.

4. Overall summary from the Customer Experience Committee, recommendations and forward look for 2022 to 2023

Committee summary for 2021 to 2022

The committee recognises the role HMRC continued to play in the government’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic during 2021 to 2022, as well as the impact this had on overall customer service levels, the concerns of which have been expressed by the Charter Stakeholder Group.

The committee acknowledges this, and the frustrations faced by customers and agents in service response times, which overshadowed the positive improvements HMRC made in the last year. The committee will continue to monitor and challenge HMRC’s customer service performance at its quarterly Board meetings.

During 2021 to 2022, the committee was reassured that HMRC continued to keep the customer at the heart of its ongoing transformation, particularly HMRC’s continued focus to develop the Single Customer Account; and the continued roll out of Making Tax Digital to support HMRC’s long-term transformation for customers to interact digitally.

The committee also observed HMRC make steady, positive progress in the implementation of the Charter standards across the organisation, and fully supports HMRC’s ongoing efforts in building capability to bring the Charter standards to life in every aspect of its business.

HMRC has continued to drive up the quality and capability of its people, particularly the ongoing work to strengthen the application of the Compliance Professional Standards in compliance activities, alongside the programme of work established by Customer Services Group to embed the Charter into its day-to-day operational activities. Improving the quality of service to customers at their first contact with HMRC is an important step in delivering against the Charter.

The committee was especially pleased to see the progress HMRC made during 2021 to 2022 to improve customer communications – this strongly aligns to the Charter standard to make things easy, as well as ensuring HMRC and customers are equipped with the right information to get things right, first time. This included HMRC’s work to improve over 1,000 letters and factsheets to make them easier for the customer to understand and the introduction of a single consistent set of customer writing guidelines for colleagues, which place the focus on making letters clear and easy to read. This focus on improving customer communication was a priority for the committee during 2021 to 2022 and will be something they continue to support HMRC with during 2022 to 2023.

Delivering against the Charter is not a goal that HMRC can achieve in a short period of time. Implementing the standards and ensuring they remain visible and embodied throughout the organisation, from decision making through to delivery and on the front line, will be a continuous priority for HMRC over many years to come.

The committee is confident that the priorities it set out in last year’s report, which roll through to 2022 to 2023, remain the right areas of focus to support HMRC to move towards its vision to be a trusted, modern tax and customs department and improve customer experience.

Recommendations and forward look for 2022 to 2023

The committee does not underestimate the continued challenges that HMRC faces in the current economic climate and the additional demands these challenges may place on its services; alongside the impacts of the last two years from being at the forefront of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which have understandably affected overall service levels.

Ensuring continued improvements to customer experience is critical for our customers and to reduce pressure on customer service. That is why the committee will be pushing HMRC hard this year to show measurable improvements across all Charter standards through their priorities:

• keeping the customer view at the forefront of HMRC’s short, medium and long-term transformation activities, such as the Single Customer Account
• continuing to build improvements to the way HMRC communicates and interacts with customers, and learning from the successful changes introduced through 2021 to 2022
• continuing efforts to bring the Charter standards to life across the organisation and strengthening HMRC’s focus on improving customer experience
• quantifying the improvements to customer experience and putting in place measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of HMRC activity in tackling the systemic drivers of a poor customer experience

The Charter Stakeholder Group are understandably pressing the department to be ‘more responsive’ in 2022 to 2023. In the long-term HMRC will achieve this through its transformation programmes, and that is why this remains a committee priority.

In this report the Adjudicator notes the importance of good customer communication, particularly about policy. Good communication makes it easy for customers to get things right and demonstrates to customers that HMRC is aware of their personal situation. Whilst this has been an area of strong focus for HMRC there is still more to do.

Both the Charter Stakeholder Group and the Adjudicator note the importance of fully embedding the Charter into the organisation. HMRC has strong plans here and the committee will work with HMRC to make sure they are delivered.

The committee notes there is a need for more data in this space, which is why we will be working with HMRC to quantify the improvements to customer experience and put in place measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of HMRC’s activity.

5. Feedback

HMRC welcomes any feedback about the content of this report or interactions and how it has performed against the Charter. To leave feedback please email HMRC[email protected].

Appendix 1: HMRC Charter

Working with you to get tax right

HMRC is here to collect the tax that pays for the UK’s public services.

We’ll help you meet your tax responsibilities and make sure you get any benefits, tax credits, refunds or other support you can claim. However, we will take firm action against the small minority who bend or break the law.

Our standards

Getting things right

We’ll give you accurate, consistent and clear information. This will help you meet your obligations and understand your rights and what you can claim. When we ask for information, we rely on you to give us full, accurate and timely answers. If you disagree with us, we’ll tell you about options available to you and work with you to reach an appropriate outcome quickly and simply.

Making things easy

We’ll provide services that are designed around what you need to do, and are accessible, easy and quick to use, minimising the cost to you.

Being Responsive

When you get in touch with us, we’ll make sure that the people you deal with have the right level of expertise. We’ll answer your questions and resolve things first time, or as quickly as we can. We’ll also explain what happens next and when you can expect a response from us. If we make a mistake, we’ll put it right as soon as possible. If you’re not satisfied with the service you’ve received, we’ll explain how you can make a complaint.

Treating You Fairly

We’ll work within the law to make sure everyone pays the right amount of tax and gets their benefits and other entitlements. We’ll assume you’re telling the truth, unless we’ve good reason to think you’re not. 

Being Aware of Your Personal Situation

We’ll listen to your worries and answer any questions clearly and concisely. We’ll be mindful of your wider personal situation, and will give you extra support if you need it. 

Recognising that someone can represent you

We’ll respect your wish to have someone else deal with us on your behalf, such as an accountant, friend or a relative. We’ll only deal with them if you have authorised them to represent you. To protect you, HMRC works with professional bodies to set the standard expected of professional agents who support you to meet your tax obligations. We can refuse to work with professional agents who fail to adhere to this standard.

Keeping your data secure

We’ll protect information we hold about you and treat it as private and confidential. We’ll always use that information fairly and lawfully. 

Mutual respect

We take any threats, intimidation or harassment very seriously and will take appropriate action against any behaviour of this type. We’ll always treat you in line with our values of respect, professionalism and integrity. Our employees are people too and we expect you to treat them in the same way.

Appendix 2: Customer Experience Committee

The Customer Experience Committee assists the Commissioners of HMRC in their statutory obligation to report annually on the extent to which HMRC has demonstrated the standards of behaviour and values included in the HMRC Charter and complies with the legal obligation to periodically review the content.

The purpose of the committee is to support and challenge ExCom on customer experience-related issues and to help the department deliver on its strategic objectives.

The committee does this by:

• challenging and supporting HMRC to tackle high level risks to the department
• examining planned changes to ensure that the impact on customers has been sufficiently considered
• providing advice on how relevant policies, strategies and practices can be improved
• identifying priority areas in the end-to-end customer experience where improvements are necessary

Customer Experience Committee membership

Below is a list of the Non-Executive Directors of HMRC and independent advisers making up the Customer Experience Committee, along with positions they hold and their experience.

Name	Current positions and experience
Juliette Scott (Current Chair)	Juliette is a non-executive director for HMRC. She is also a non-executive board member at Versus Arthritis (formerly known as Arthritis Research UK) and provides advisory services through her consultancy business. Juliette was previously at eBay – firstly on the board of eBay UK as the Director of Customer Insight, and in her last role she was responsible for customer insight and analytics across Europe. Juliette was introduced into the world of data insight through her time at customer data science company dunnhumby, where she worked in senior roles across many areas at Tesco.
Michael Hearty	Michael is a highly experienced, professionally qualified accountant, with extensive strategic and operational leadership experience up to the level of Director General in a range of large and complex UK government departments and agencies. Michael was also a Director General on the Board of the Welsh Government, the executive arm of devolved government in Wales until 2015, where he provided strategic advice and challenge to both the First Minister and the Finance Minister for Wales on a range of strategic planning, finance, corporate governance and performance matters. Currently, Michael holds a range of Non-Executive and independent advisor roles with a number of organisations including HMRC, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and Hywel Dda University Health Board (HDUHB) in Wales.
Patricia Gallan QPM	Patricia is a non-executive director at HMRC. She is a former British police officer who was Assistant Commissioner Specialist Crime and Operations of the Metropolitan Police in London until 2018. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Specialist Operations – Security and Protection) and also Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Professionalism) from 2012 to 2015, Assistant Chief Constable (Operations Support) of Merseyside Police from February 2006 to 2012, and also served as temporary Deputy Chief Constable of the force from October 2009 to February 2010. She was Assistant Chief Constable at the National Crime Squad from January 2005 to February 2006.
Jean-François Bessiron	Jean-François is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee. He is a global leader with more than 20 years’ experience in supply chain/commercial operations and digital marketing and technology. He has held senior leadership positions with FTSE100 and NASDAQ quoted companies at Kingfisher, TechData, Amazon and most recently at Groupon, where he is International Vice President.
Leonie Foster	Leonie is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee. She is Executive Director – Customer and Digital at Selfridges and Co. She was on the operating board of Dunelm, the UK homewares retailer until March 2020, where she held accountability for the end-to-end customer experience across digital, store format and marketing, for online sales and for leading the multi-channel transformation. Before joining Dunelm, Leonie spent 5 years at Tesco where she led the insight, customer strategy, advertising and Clubcard teams and 5 years at OC&C strategy consultants.
Steven Martin	Steven is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee. He is currently Vice President of Data Partnerships Europe and APAC at The Trade Desk following his recent move from LiveRamp, where he was Managing Director of International Data. His role focuses on helping clients to make the most of both their own customer data and other data they can access about their customers from partners and suppliers.

Appendix 3: Charter Stakeholder Group

Charter Stakeholder Group Members

• Caroline Miskin – Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
• Claire Thackaberry/Joanne Walker – Low Incomes Tax Reform Group
• Glenn Collins – Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
• Lora Murphy – Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
• Rebecca Benneyworth – Admin Burdens Advisory Board
• Susan Cattell – Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
• Will Silsby – The Association of Taxation Technicians
• Richard Wild – The Chartered Institute of Taxation
• Anne Davis – Institute of Financial Accountants (until February 2022)
• Ian Waters – Institute of Financial Accountants (From March 2022)

Charter Stakeholder Group Comments against each Charter Standard

Getting things right

Performance against this standard still appears inconsistent, particularly in relation to the accuracy of information provided by HMRC, which agents report is often inaccurate. One commented ‘I am fortunate enough to have enough knowledge to know when information I am given is wrong’. We are concerned about the high level of perceived inaccuracy of information provided by HMRC, especially when the recipient may be a taxpayer who will simply assume it will be correct.

We have also seen problems in other areas, such as the Self Assessment pre-population service, incorrect notices to file returns or incorrect penalties being issued, and marriage allowance claims not being processed correctly. Many of the problems being experienced arise within HMRC’s own IT systems, and while we recognise the sensitivities of accepting something isn’t working, it would help taxpayers and agents, and reduce HMRC contact, if HMRC published a list of known issues and workarounds as quickly as possible.

Making things easy

In many respects dealing with HMRC can be easy, particularly in relation to long-standing automated processes which generally work well. The increasing use of YouTube videos and interactive guidance is also welcome. The COVID-19 pandemic has also seen HMRC adopt several easements around the use of email, online forms etc, and we would welcome these becoming standard practice as they often deliver efficiencies for all parties.

Problems remain with the UK Capital Gains Tax Property Reporting Service. One major issue this year has been the failure to integrate the Capital Gains Tax and Self Assessment payment systems. While a process was put in place to deal with this, it requires manual intervention and has generated additional work for agents and HMRC.

Guidance should be sufficient to help people meet their obligations and understand their entitlements, but its timeliness and accuracy remains a concern. The UK Property Reporting Service, for example, was launched on 6 April 2020, but the first detailed guidance was not provided until December 2021.

More generally, it can be difficult to find the right guidance, with one agent commenting ‘there are several pages on the website that link to more manuals. I go around in circles trying to find the guidance I need’. We welcome the work that is being done around HMRC’s guidance through the Guidance Strategy Forum, but it’s clear that more needs to be done to ensure GOV.UK users can find the right material.

One of the consequences of HMRC’s poor service levels is that delays can often complicate otherwise straightforward processes. For example, it has been taking many months (in some cases more than nine months) to process VAT grouping applications, causing difficulties for some companies. No official guidance was published by HMRC until March 2022, itself contradicting previously shared informal guidance. This has caused significant complexity and practical difficulties which publication of earlier, accurate guidance could have avoided. We welcome HMRC’s announcement that assessments and penalties raised in the interim will be automatically cancelled, and we believe the same approach should be adopted in all cases of HMRC delay.

Being responsive

Throughout 2021 to 2022 we received constant complaints about HMRC’s service levels. Poor telephone line performance continued from 2020 to 2021, but the primary concern relates to post and other forms of correspondence, the turnaround times for which have been, in many areas, unacceptable. One agent reported ‘Letter sent to HMRC 16 December 2021. Been told that it will be dealt with by 17 October 2022’. While we recognise the impact of the pandemic, HMRC’s service levels in many areas have been unsatisfactory for several years.

We are pleased that HMRC has launched the new HMRC service dashboard, which will help manage expectations and reduce low-value HMRC contact. We would encourage expansion of the dashboard to further service lines, as well as providing dates by which backlogs will be cleared.

While HMRC explained it was prioritising repayments during the pandemic, we continue to hear reports of long delays being experienced, including Self Assessment refunds which are flagged as ‘pending’, but no explanation given as to why or when the refund will be made. These problems arose in areas where claims for refunds could have been anticipated, such as corporation tax loss carry backs which have taken up to seven months to process and often only when prompted by the taxpayer or agent. This suggests a lack of appropriate resourcing. Delays in processing routine applications, for example, for Unique Trader References, agent authorisation and VAT registration caused significant inconvenience for all parties.

The Friday closures of the VAT and Corporation Tax helplines are intended to help clear some of the backlog in post, but helplines must return to their normal hours and be available every day. We were pleased to see reinstatement of the Agent Dedicated Line during the year and it is important that this service continues.

Treating you fairly

We welcome the work undertaken by HMRC’s Customer Compliance Group (CCG), where several improvements have been made to the opening stages of a compliance check. We have also received complimentary feedback about the politeness and helpfulness of individuals on HMRC’s helplines, though unfortunately such comments are often hedged with the view that they frequently lack adequate tax knowledge.

However, we have received reports of a more closed-minded approach being adopted by HMRC. For example, around COVID-19 schemes compliance, where HMRC has been dismissive of evidence provided to it when it hasn’t suited the narrative that it is seeking to impose. Whilst the taskforce is charged with recovery of overpaid grants, its approach should still comply with the Charter.

HMRC also needs to be more mindful of wider pressures on businesses and taxpayers when requesting information. These requests can be onerous to comply with, and requests for provision of information within a short timescale can be impractical, as well as insensitive if months have elapsed while the ball has been in HMRC’s court. Unless there is a risk of a time limit expiring, we would recommend a collaborative approach to information requests.

Being aware of your personal situation

We are pleased that HMRC continues to be aware of the impact the pandemic is having on taxpayers and their agents; introducing or extending schemes to allow more time to pay taxes, or to comply with filing obligations without being penalised, and adopting a more supportive approach to debt collection. We were particularly pleased that HMRC made an early announcement in relation to the 31 January Self Assessment 2022 deadline.

HMRC has introduced more assistance for those of its customers who require extra support, such as introducing a new team within CCG and developing training for staff. HMRC’s extra support service generally works well. However, concerns have been raised with us about taxpayers who need extra support failing to be identified as such and therefore not being suitably accommodated. For example, we received feedback that a taxpayer with dyslexia was told that they could submit their own return, even though they had chosen to use an agent because of their circumstances, and offered less favourable payment terms than those available if applying online.

HMRC should take steps to raise awareness of the need to ascertain at the outset whether taxpayers may need extra support, particularly in potential high stress areas such as Debt Management and compliance.

Even those who are digitally capable can struggle with things like passing security checks when setting up a government gateway account, and more needs doing to help taxpayers through digital processes, or providing an alternative for those who need one.

Recognising that someone can represent you

We fully support HMRC’s policy statements which recognise the value that agents bring to the tax system, and HMRC’s commitment that agents should be able to see and do what their clients can and designing in agent access from the outset. It is vital that these commitments are consistently met in practice.

The process for authorising an agent is not the same across HMRC service lines and can be confusing for taxpayers and agents alike. We welcomed publication of the various authorisation methods in Agent Update 81; we would encourage HMRC to make that more visible on GOV.UK and keep it updated. We also welcome the work being undertaken to improve form 64-8.

The digital handshake continues to cause problems and increased costs for some taxpayers. It remains unclear why an existing Self Assessment authority is inadequate for the UK Property Reporting Service, and concerning that there is no alternative method of appointing an agent for this service, effectively denying some taxpayers this Charter right.

There have been delays in processing some agent authorisations, which can prevent agents from acting on their client’s behalf, thus preventing prompt resolution of tax matters. HMRC’s ability to accommodate multiple agents also needs resolving, especially with initiatives such as Making Tax Digital likely to increase taxpayers’ use of more than one agent.

While HMRC needs to recognise a taxpayer’s right to be represented, it also has an obligation to protect taxpayers from unscrupulous agents. We welcome efforts to uphold standards of agent behaviour, but remain concerned about some practices, particularly the use of deeds of assignment. HMRC should strengthen its processes in this area to confirm there is a valid deed of assignment, signed by the taxpayer (who is fully cognisant of its effects).

Keeping your data secure

In general, we consider that HMRC meets this standard. HMRC seems to have increased its attempts to raise awareness of scam and fraudulent activity, and when contact from HMRC is genuine.

We have received a handful of examples of potential data breaches, such as sending correspondence to the wrong address, or duplicating records, but these seem to be the exception rather than the norm.

However, we remain concerned that HMRC is increasingly placing some taxpayers in a position where they feel forced to share confidential data with friends or family to gain access to HMRC services, for example, to authorise an agent or to substantiate entitlement to a refund. There need to be workable alternative mechanisms for those who cannot use digital systems.

Appendix 4: Results from HMRC individuals, small business and agents customer survey 2021

1. Charter standard: Getting things right

Question: HMRC gets transactions right

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	61%	65%
Small businesses	77%	81%
Agents	58%	66%

Question: HMRC ensures all customers pay/receive the correct amounts

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	29%	41%
Small businesses	52%	58%
Agents	54%	54%

Question: HMRC systems prevented mistakes

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	48%	51%
Small businesses	59%	67%
Agents	39%	51%

2. Charter standard: Making things easy

Question: Ease of dealing with tax issues

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	57%	59%
Small businesses	73%	77%
Agents	43%	55%

Question: It was easy to find information

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	53%	57%
Small businesses	64%	68%
Agents	47%	54%

3. Charter standard: Being responsive

Question: HMRC resolved any queries or issues

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	59%	63%
Small businesses	71%	76%
Agents	45%	53%

Question: Time taken is acceptable

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	58%	63%
Small businesses	67%	76%
Agents	31%	41%

4. Charter standard: Treating you fairly

Question: HMRC treat customers fairly

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	71%	73%
Small businesses	80%	85%
Agents	71%	76%

Question: HMRC apply penalties and sanctions equally

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	23%	37%
Small businesses	39%	41%
Agents	53%	48%

Question: HMRC is an organisation that I trust

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	52%	not asked in previous years
Small businesses	70%	not asked in previous years
Agents	61%	not asked in previous years

5. Charter standard: Being aware of your personal situation

Question: HMRC is approachable

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	58%	62%
Small businesses	not asked	not asked in previous years
Agents	not asked	not asked in previous years

Question: HMRC took my personal circumstances into account

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	50%	55%
Small businesses	59%	69%
Agents	52%	57%

6. Charter standard: Recognising that someone can represent you

Question: HMRC made it easy for someone to act on your behalf

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	66%	66%
Small businesses	77%	83%
Agents	not asked	not asked in previous years

7. Charter standard: Keeping your data secure

Question: HMRC ensures data and personal information is treated confidentially

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Individuals	63%	66%
Small businesses	76%	80%
Agents	80%	83%

Appendix 5: Results from HMRC Mid-sized business customer survey 2021

Overall Summary

HMRC’s 2021 annual customer survey for Mid-sized businesses showed that the rating of overall customer experience fell when compared to 2020 (57% rated HMRC positively in 2021 compared with 63% in 2020). Although a significant decrease, the 2021 rating has moved back in line with 2019 levels.

Ratings of other drivers of customer experience (resolving queries, time taken and ease of finding information) have remained similar or seen no significant change since 2020.

Additional analysis on the 2021 results found that overall experience of dealing with HMRC was strongly related to perceptions of time taken and how well queries were resolved. Ease of finding information had no direct relationship with overall experience.

1. Charter Standard: Getting things right

Question: HMRC gets transactions right

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	60%	62%

Question: HMRC ensure all customers pay/receive the correct amounts

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	69%	not asked in previous years

Question: HMRC systems prevented mistakes

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	42%	not asked in previous years

2. Charter Standard: Making things easy

Question: Ease of dealing with tax issues

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	58%	not asked in previous years

Question: It was easy to find information/ease of finding information

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	49%	50%

3. Charter Standard: Being Responsive

Question: HMRC resolved any queries or issues

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	56%	59%

Question: Time taken is acceptable

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	44%	47%

4. Charter Standard: Treating you fairly

Question: HMRC treats your business fairly

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	71%	73%

Question: HMRC apply penalties and sanctions equally

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	44%	44%

5. Charter Standard: Being aware of your personal situation

No relevant questions on the 2021 Mid-sized business customer survey.

6. Charter Standard: Recognising that someone can represent you

No relevant questions on the 2021 Mid-sized business customer survey.

7. Charter Standard: Keeping your data secure

Question: HMRC ensures data and personal information is treated confidentially

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Mid-sized businesses	77%	not asked in previous years

Appendix 6: Results from HMRC large business customer survey 2021

Overall Summary

HMRC’s 2021 annual customer survey large businesses showed that the rating of overall customer experience fell when compared to 2020 (83% rated HMRC positively in 2021 compared with 91% in 2020). Although a significant decrease compared to 2020, the 2021 rating has moved back in line with 2019 levels. While scores for overall relationship with CCMs also peaked in 2020 at 96%, these scores remained stable in 2021, with 95% rating their CCM positively.

Across the majority of measures relating to customer experience in 2021, scores reverted back to pre-pandemic levels after a peak in 2020. Some scores remained higher than pre-pandemic levels, such as HMRC treating businesses fairly, and those agreeing the admin burden is ‘reasonable’. However, scores relating to trust in HMRC and CCM timeliness of response have declined below pre-pandemic levels.

1. Charter Standard: Getting things right

No relevant questions on the 2021 large business customer survey.

2. Charter Standard: Making things easy

Question: HMRC are easy to deal with

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	74%	not asked in previous years

Question: HMRC made clear the steps your business needed to take

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	71%	not asked in previous years

3. Charter Standard: Being Responsive

Question: HMRC responded in a timeframe that was reasonable from a commercial perspective

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	57%	not asked in previous years

Question: Your CCM responded within the timeframes agreed

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	81%	88%

Question: Your CCM kept your business informed on the internal progress of issues raised

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	69%	not asked in previous years

4. Charter Standard: Treating you fairly

Question: HMRC treats your business fairly

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	90%	91%

Question: HMRC apply penalties and sanctions equally

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	39%	52%

Question: Interaction with HMRC has led to your business having trust in HMRC

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	70%	86%

5. Charter Standard: Being aware of your personal situation

Question: HMRC provide a service that is personalised to your business

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	67%	not asked in previous years

Question: Your CCM’s understanding of the commercial context your business operates in

Customer survey group	Percentage who agree 2021	Percentage who agree 2020
Large businesses	79%	83%

6. Charter Standard: Recognising that someone can represent you

No relevant questions on the 2021 large business customer survey.

Charter Standard: Keeping your data secure

No relevant questions on the 2021 large business customer survey.

Appendix 7: Customer Service Performance Data

Uncertainty around the operating environment due to COVID-19 meant HMRC did not set formal performance targets for 2021 to 2022. Instead HMRC continued to set forecasts of what performance was expected to look like throughout the year.

Further information can be found in HMRC’s quarterly performance updates.

	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021
Net Easy – webchat and digital services [1]	-	72.2
Net Easy – Phone, webchat and digital services [1]	65.5	-
Telephony adviser attempts handled [2]	77.3%	-
Webchat adviser attempts handled [2]	92.9%	-
Customer iForms cleared within 7 days of receipt [3]	-	70.4%
Customer post handled within 15 days of receipt [3]	-	64.4%
Customer correspondence (Post and iForms) cleared within 15 days of receipt [3]	45.5%	-
Customer satisfaction with webchat and digital services [4]	-	85.2%
Customer Satisfaction with phone, webchat and digital [4]	82.0%	-

Notes:

[1] The scope of the Net Easy measure has changed for 2021-22. This now includes phone services as well as webchat and digital channels so the data is not comparable to last years.

[2] New measures for 2021-22.

[3] Customer correspondence measure now includes iForms and post, these were recorded separately in previous years.

[4] The scope of the customer satisfaction measure has changed for 2021-22. This now includes phone services as well as webchat and digital channels so the data is not comparable to last years.