A sign that some of HMRC’s work to address unacceptably poor levels of service on helplines is that the wait on hold over the phone has been coming down, now at an average 13 minutes and 14 seconds.

The same quarter in 2024 saw wait times of up to 28 minutes and 34 seconds so this is a significant improvement from HMRC in this respect.

However, this is still more than 10 times longer than using the webchat service and receiving a response where taxpayers have to wait just over one minute.