Following criticism of long wait times for taxpayers to get through to call centres, HMRC admitted that the average wait time has doubled to 27 minutes, but said home workers did not affect performance
HMRC has told MPs on the Treasury Committee that the average wait time for its self assessment helpline in January was 27 minutes, compared with 12 minutes last year. HMRC suggested that if taxpayers were to use online services rather than calling the helpline, waiting times would fall.
The organisation denied that call centre staff working from home has led to a fall in productivity.
In a letter to the chair of the Treasury Committee, Harriet Baldwin, HMRC chief executive Jim Harra said: ‘In December and January so far, HMRC’s digital assistant has handled approximately 105,000 interactions, providing the answer automatically in more than half of them.
‘For those customers who needed help from an HMRC adviser through webchat, the customer satisfaction rate was 81% (above industry standard).’
