According to the analysis provided for HMRC’s corporate report under its single departmental plan for 2015 to 2020, in the period June to September this year, response rates for i-forms and emails sent via digital personal accounts remained above target. In 99% of cases, a response was provided with the agreed timescale of seven days.

Despite the fact that customer service levels are maintaining an upward trend, HMRC’s analysis also shows that customer satisfaction levels have yet to increase at the same rate, and it is not meeting its targets in this respect.

The aim is to achieve an average of 80% customer satisfaction for its digital services, but the July to September figure of 76.1% is only slightly above the previous quarter’s 75.7%.  The yearly average currently stands at 75.9%.

Previously figures from HMRC have shown that less than one in five UK taxpayers have set up a personal tax account with HMRC since the launch of the online digital accounts in the UK, leaving 25 million outside the system.

HMRC is hitting its target of answering taxpayer calls to its helplines within an average speed of answer of six minutes, having been castigated by both the National Audit Office and the public accounts committee for poor performance in this area in 2015.

From June to September 2016, calls were answered on average in four minutes and four seconds, bringing the yearly average down to four minutes and 34 seconds, from five minutes and three seconds the previous quarter.

In addition, 90.6% of calls were answered first time, above the target rate of 85%, and bringing the yearly average for first time response up to 89.9%.

There has also been a very slight improvement in HMRC’s post handling, with 81.6% of post getting a response within 15 working days, pulling the yearly average up to 80.9%, just over the target rate of 80%.

HMRC is, however, comfortably meeting its target of answering 95% of post within 40 working days. The yearly average now stands at 97.3%, although there was a slight dip in the quarter (96.3%) compared with the previous three month period (97.9%).

HMRC’s update to the single departmental plan 2015 to 2020 is here.