The latest figures showed £152,871,499 was spent on 4,032 IT staff in the financial year ending March 2023.

The budget has increased by 91% compared to 2019, when the staff pay bill totalled £79.9m, with only 2,203 staff in post, reveals Freedom of Information figures obtained by think tank Parliament Street.

HMRC is focusing efforts on reducing the use of call centres and moving as many services as possible to online and digital only services in a bid to cut costs. This comes as the accountancy profession has criticised the standard of service provided by HMRC, with lengthy waits on phone lines and long response times for the majority of services, including from basics like VAT registration to PAYE enquiries.