In a bid to increase transparency, HMRC has published its first ever call centre performance statistics.

The move was a key recommendation from a number of industry and professional bodies to the Treasury Committee in their July 2011 report into HMRC's efficiency and effectiveness, in a bid to up its game. It followed widespread criticism of its call centre performance.

The statistics reveal the quarterly performance figures for HMRC's eight contact centres dotted across the UK which include Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff and Edinburgh and cover the April - June 2012 period.

Some 4,000 customers were surveyed to glean their response to the quality of service received from staff handling calls in the taxes; tax credits; child benefit; personal tax; benefits and credits and business tax teams.

Over 22m call attempts were made during the quarter with an average of 67% being 'handled'. Some 43% of callers waited less than two minutes to be answered while over one in five (22%) had to wait between 10 and 20 minutes.

However, an unfortunate 1% had to endure a wait of over half an hour and up to 45 minutes before being answered. But 4% of the 8,115,885 callers to the taxes team had to wait between 30-45 minutes before the phone was even picked up.

Those calling about child benefit-related issues rated their 'overall customer experience' the highest at 86%, closely followed by business tax at 85%, benefits and credits and tax credits at 79%. Personal tax callers scored their experience as 70% while taxes faired the worst at 68%.

Meanwhile, the taxes team managed just a 49% rating for 'ease of getting in touch' compared to 81% recorded for both child benefit and business tax callers.

When it came to 'getting things right first time' child benefit trumped all other sectors with a score of 86% followed by business tax at 84%. Taxes were rated the worst at 68%.

The ICAEW has hailed the publication of the statistics as a 'major step forward'.

Frank Haskew, ICAEW's tax faculty head, said: 'As a direct result of our discussions, HMRC also announced that £34m of funding would be reprioritised to fund an extra 1,000 staff to improve call centre performance. For the future we need to ensure that these improvements will be sustained and do not result in a decline in service standards elsewhere. We will continue to work with HMRC to help them make further much needed improvements to service standards.'

Brian Wilson, of the independent, professional membership body, the Institute of Customer Service, said: 'Any public organisation that is being open and transparent should be encouraged, and the fact that they have published these statistics suggests they are taking the issue of performance seriously.'