This ambitious plan will see 12 separate contracts for different aspects of the HMRC contact centre, phone system and customer engagement services merged into a single agreement with one supplier instead of old legacy systems which do not talk to each other.

The plan was first announced in August 2024, with initial scoping of potential suppliers. The £500m contract for a fully powered eCRM and Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) telephony system will be awarded by April 2026 and will run for eight years initially. The expenditure will be allocated through to 2033, and will cost around £62m a year.

CCaaS will help ‘better manage call queues, provide accurate wait times, and offer intelligent digital assistant support,’ HMRC said. ‘This will allow us to deliver a more responsive and personalised service, both over the phone and through digital channels.’

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