Recommendation 27

HMRC told us that its performance was improving in 2021–22. It said it had got helpline performance up to what it regarded as a “decent service”, and had thus diverted resources to handling post, as this was the area with most backlogs.48 HMRC’s latest published quarterly performance update, shows that in the first half of 2021–22, its performance in responding to post was worse than in 2020–21, with less than 40% of post responded to within 15 days.49