Following complaints from the professional bodies, including CIOT and ICAEW, HMRC has defended its service levels and committed to further staff recruitment to improve service standards
In a letter to the joint professional bodies, HMRC has responded to the serious complaints about service standards, admitting the negative impact the poor performance has on tax agents and accountants.
One of the significant areas of concern relates to call handling and waiting times for connecting with HMRC agents.
'I recognise the impact our performance has on your members and thank you for raising their concerns,' said HMRC director general customer services Myrtle Lloyd.
‘In terms of our performance, we made solid progress in 2021/22 and this will carry on in 2022/23.'
‘We aim to answer all calls to the agent dedicated line (ADL) within 10 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.
