Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 10
3rd Report - HMRC Customer Service and Accounts
Published 22 Jan 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee HMRC Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In May 2024, HMRC received £51 million additional funding, to cover approximately 1,500 staff for 2024–25, to bring its customer service to target levels for answering 85% of customers’ attempts to speak to an adviser on the telephone and for handling 80% of correspondence within 15 working days.19 It said it achieved its target for telephone performance in October 2024 and expects to sustain it for the remainder of 2024–25 and for 2025– 26.20 13 Customer service, paras 21, 2.1 14 Q 73 15 Customer service, para 1.24 16 Q 74 17 Q 81 18 Q 12 19 Report on 2023–24 Accounts, para 9 20 Q 48 9 2 Moving customers to digital services Developing effective digital services
From: Public Accounts Committee, 3rd Report - HMRC Customer Service and Accounts (HC 347), 22 January 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Third Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Third report from Session 2024-25
Published 6 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations, with target implementation dates ranging from March 2026 to March 2028 for several, but disagrees with reinstating a call waiting time target and with the proposed resourcing "guard rails" and corrective trigger.
- On a call waiting time target, the government "disagrees". It says ASA "remains a key performance metric" and that its Adviser Attempts Handled measure and customer satisfaction metrics give "a more rounded view" of the experience for all callers.
- The government agrees that call waiting estimates, no cut-offs without warning and a callback service should be required in a new telephone service, with a target implementation date of March 2027. It says the new Contact Service platform procurement will launch in spring 2025.
- The government disagrees with setting a trigger when service levels fall more than five percentage points below target. It says HMRC is "always reviewing plans and forecasts of demand" and adjusting resourcing "day-by-day and week-by-week".
- On tax debt, the government agrees, and HMRC "will respond to the Committee in September 2025" with its expectations for the debt balance by 2029-30 and plans for older debts, allowing for the outcome of Spending Review Phase 2.