For every £1 HM Revenue & Customs has saved since it implemented deep cuts to staff, callers to the tax agency have lost the equivalent of about £4 each in wasted time.
The National Audit Office said HMRC got the timing of its staff reductions in 2014 “badly wrong”, leading to long telephone queues for its services and advice, sometimes of more than an hour.
In the three years to 2015-16, the spending watchdog added, customers’ costs increased by £33.6m. By contrast, HMRC made only marginal savings on its telephone transaction costs as the result of staff cuts.
Although the Revenue’s performance has since recovered from the call-centre debacle, which was the target of a coruscating report by a committee of MPs, the NAO warned that its performance would depend on the success of its digital strategy. This aims to reduce demand for costly telephone and postal contact by moving taxpayers and benefit claimants online.
The deterioration in call handling followed big staff reductions that cut the cost of HMRC’s personal tax operations by £257m in the four years to 2014-15. The number of HMRC staff involved in personal tax over that period fell from 26,000 to 15,000.
The NAO said the agency managed to maintain or improve its customer service up to 2013-14 but then “misjudged the cumulative impact of its complex transition” and prematurely cut too many customer service staff, as it expanded its digital services.
Source: All text from FT.com
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