Jim Harra, chief executive of HMRC said: ‘This is an annualised hours trial. We get higher demand in the winter and lower demand in the summer. We want to trial this with our people – they will have to give up the ability to work flexibly and we will give them a 1% pay rise. The trial will start in April 2024.’

Staff will still work the same number of hours a year but they will be able to flex their working hours depending on workload. At the moment, HMRC staff are contracted to work 37 hours per week, which is 1,931 hours over the year.

Under the new arrangement, working hours would be changed so staff would be able to work half the year on a three to four-day a week basis and the other half effectively on a five to six-day a week basis if they were to work 44 hours during the longer working weeks. HMRC is currently discussing how the trial will work with union reps.

An HMRC spokesperson told Accountancy Daily: ‘Some reporting of this trial has been misleading. On an annualised hours contract, colleagues will work the same number of hours over the year, but their working weeks will vary.

‘During this trial, colleagues will work 44 hours per week for six months of the year, and 27 hours per week in the other six months of the year. 

‘We’re looking for around 100 volunteers to trial working more of their hours at the busiest time of the year. They will still work the same number of hours over a year but they will do more when its busy.’

There are different working patterns available during the trial so staff working in non-peak roles could work between three to five days depending on the working pattern selected.

HMRC is under huge pressure to improve service levels and has been criticised by MPs, accountancy bodies and tax advisers for slow response times and lengthy delays to receive responses to enquiries.

Over the summer HMRC reduced the number of staff working in call centres as part of its ‘surge management’ approach to focus on clearing other backlogs including complex cases and post handling.

It is also pushing taxpayers to use online services and not to phone HMRC, but recent research showed that taxpayers worry that they will get the information wrong and want to speak to an adviser particularly when their enquiry relates to complex tax affairs.

There is also pressure on staff numbers as overall funding for HMRC has been cut in the past few years. Recent government budget increases have prioritised investigation work after the slowdown in activity during the pandemic due to the allocation of staff to furlough and covid schemes, rather than focusing on tax collection and investigations.