The productivity of HMRC compliance staff has dropped since the pandemic, with each officer pulling in £130,000 less on average finds National Audit Office (NAO)
In the five years running up to the pandemic HMRC compliance staff managed to recover £1.4m per employee every year, however this has now dropped by £130,000 to £1.27m per head. HMRC is hiring more staff to address this with the aim of increasing the yield of compliance officers.
In the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report into HMRC administrative costs, the watchdog warned that HMRC will face ‘continuing challenges’ to increase the efficiency and productivity of its staff, with IT programmes and customer service levels seen as the biggest hurdle to improving productivity which is not yet back at pre-pandemic levels.
HMRC projects 700,000 more taxpayers will have to file a self assessment tax return for the 2024-25 tax year, inevitably meaning that more people will need customer support.
