Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 14
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)
HMRC received 22 million items of correspondence in 2022–23, including physical post and forms and interactive forms.37 Around 70% of correspondence comes in through the post. To process postal correspondence, as well as some electronic correspondence, HMRC must scan or manually enter the information into its systems, or both.38 HMRC has not met an annual performance target for processing correspondence since 2018–19.39 In 2023–24, HMRC cleared 76.3% of correspondence within 15 working days, up from 45.5% in 2021–22 but still below its target of 80%.40 In 2022–23, HMRC spent £68 million on postage and print costs.41
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.