Corporate report

Your Charter Annual Report: April 2018 to March 2019

Published 18 July 2019

Foreword by Chair of the Customer Experience Committee, Mervyn Walker

Image shows Mervyn Walker, Chair of the Customer Experience Committee

HMRC replaced the Charter Committee with a new Customer Experience Committee in autumn 2018. The new committee builds on the work of the Charter Committee and retains its focus on HMRC’s performance against its obligations and customer rights set out in Your Charter. However, the Customer Experience Committee will also keep a sharp eye on what people expect of customer experience in today’s world, with committee members applying their wider expertise to oversee how HMRC serves its customers.

This 2018 to 2019 report covers the work of the Charter Committee until its final meeting in June 2018 and the Customer Experience Committee from its first meeting in December 2018.

The report reflects on HMRC’s performance against Your Charter in 2018 to 2019, as well as setting out an outline of the Customer Experience Committee’s plans for the coming year.

I would like to put on record my thanks to the outgoing chair Joanna Baldwin for her contribution and in particular, the personal role she took instigating the establishment of the Customer Experience Committee and the recruitment of its independent advisers.

I must also thank the outgoing members of the Charter Committee Natalie Doig, David Oxley and Dr Anne Kirk for all their hard work and dedication of the past few years. Two Non-Executive Board members Alice Maynard and John Whiting who were members of the Charter Committee have joined the new Customer Experience Committee, along with Juliette Scott, another Non-Executive Board member.

I would also like to thank HMRC for its support in creating the new committee and the induction provided to new committee members to raise their awareness of HMRC, its operations and responsibilities.

Mervyn Walker

Why Your Charter matters

Your Charter is important to HMRC and its customers. It sets out what customers can expect from HMRC, as well as the obligations thy are expected to meet.

For HMRC people, Your Charter provides a clear framework on how they are expected to deliver services for customers.

Your Charter

We want to give you a professional service; one that is fair, accurate and based on mutual trust and respect.

We also want to make it as easy as we can for you to get things right.

Your Charter explains what you can expect from us and what we expect from you.

Your rights - what you can expect from us:	Your obligations - what we expect from you:
Respect you and treat you as honest	Be honest and respect our staff
Provide a helpful, efficient and effective service	Work with us to get things right
Be professional and act with integrity	Find out what you need to do and keep us informed
Protect your information and respect your privacy	Keep accurate records and protect your information
Accept that someone else can represent you	Know what your representative does on your behalf
Deal with complaints quickly and fairly	Respond in good time
Tackle those who bend or break the rules	Take reasonable care to avoid mistakes

1. The Charter Committee

The role of the Charter Committee was to:

• review how HMRC performs against the standards of behaviours and values in Your Charter, holding HMRC to account
• provide challenge and assurance to the HMRC Board on the implementation of the Charter and its principles
• support HMRC in improving services

The committee included Non-Executive Board Chair Joanna Baldwin, and members Dr Alice Maynard and John Whiting, along with 3 external members. Collectively, they brought to their roles a significant understanding of HMRC’s broad customer base, and the needs of each group.

Following the decision to evolve into a new Customer Experience Committee with a broader remit, the Charter Committee met once during 2018 to 2019 in June, reporting to the HMRC Board meeting.

1.1 The work of the Charter Committee - April 2018 to June 2018

The objective of the final Charter Committee meeting was to consolidate and where possible conclude its work from the past 12 months, passing to the new Customer Experience Committee any themes and issues that require further exploration.

Assisted Digital

The Charter Committee heard presentations from HMRC on how it is supporting customers through its Assisted Digital service. The committee reported that HMRC needs to develop further its customer channels and set out how these will work together to make sure all customer services are coordinated.

Needs Enhanced Support (NES)

The committee received presentations on HMRC’s approach to customers who were assessed as likely to benefit from enhanced support.

The committee said HMRC could better promote its NES service so it could raise awareness of the service among some additional customer groups.

The committee heard feedback that suitability of venues selected for customer appointments was a concern. Members asked HMRC to consider the impact that venues considered ‘unsuitable’ had on the experience for customers and our people conducting the meeting.

The committee discussed the range of people likely to require the NES service in the future. It focussed on considering how HMRC needs to strike a balance between publicising the NES service, while also facilitating the digital self-service processes and forms for customers capable of using them.

Small and mid-sized businesses

The committee held face-to-face discussions with several small and mid-sized businesses. Our business customers provided insight into the challenges they face in meeting their obligations to HMRC.

The committee decided that there should be continued discussions on the role of the Charter – whether it strikes a credible balance between customers’ rights and their obligations.

2. Transition to the Customer Experience Committee - 2018 to 2019

Image shows committee members from left to right: Mervyn Walker, Juliette Scott, John Whiting, Joseph Gordon, Alice Maynard, Steven Martin, Andrew Stephenson, Leonie Foster, Joanna Baldwin

2.1 Formation of the new committee

In the autumn of 2018, HMRC replaced the Charter Committee with the Customer Experience Committee so it could take on the broader remit, consider the end-to-end customer experience and improve its contribution further.

HMRC recruited 5 new members to act as independent advisers who were drawn from the private sector for their customer experience expertise. They were joined by the Charter Committee Chair (who continued her role as chair as the Customer Experience Committee was being established), the 2 existing HMRC Non-Executive Directors, plus one further Non-Executive Director. In early 2019, HMRC ran an induction session for the new independent advisers.

Appendix 1 sets out members of the Customer Experience Committee and the former members of the Charter Committee, along with their positions and experience.

2.2 The role of the new committee

The Customer Experience Committee is a sub-committee of the HMRC Board. It will continue the Charter Committee’s work in assisting HMRC in its statutory obligation to assess HMRC’s performance annually against the standards of behaviour and values included in Your Charter.

The Customer Experience Committee also has a legal obligation periodically to review the wording of Your Charter and is working on this in 2019 to 2020.

The new committee will support and challenge HMRC’s Executive Committee (ExCom) on customer experience-related issues, with the aim of helping the department to deliver on its strategic objectives.

The role of the committee is to provide counsel, scrutiny and challenge. It does not have decision-making authority.

The committee meets 4 times a year, reporting to the Board through its Chair at HMRC Board meetings and through this annual report.

2.3 The work of the Customer Experience Committee in 2019 to 2020

The new committee will take a strategic approach to its work, so it aligns with the HMRC Board’s priorities, but will be flexible and give advice on topical issues when they arise.

The new committee will incorporate issues which the Charter Committee recommended should continue to be areas of focus, as well as looking at the following 4 main areas in 2019 to 2020:

• customer-focused culture – members will explore key areas with the most impact in HMRC and consider proposals for further improvement. This will include a review of Your Charter, to reflect feedback and make sure that it meets the expectations and requirements of today’s customers
• performance management – the committee will review the extent to which HMRC’s measures, performance indicators and management processes are based around the needs of customers
• customer vulnerability – members will review how HMRC can best meet the needs of customers who may need extra support in their interactions with the department
• structures and processes – members will investigate how the department’s structures and processes facilitate a focus on customers, for example the committee will examine whether HMRC has a clear approach for different customer groups and builds customer needs into its policy, process design and operational work

3. Measuring HMRC’s performance against Your Charter commitments

It was a year of transition from the old Charter Committee to the new Customer Experience Committee in 2018 to 2019 and because of this, there has not been a detailed assessment on HMRC’s performance against the Charter this year.

The Customer Experience Committee will review the rights and obligations of Your Charter in 2019 to 2020, as well as the role that its members have in overseeing it.

However, feedback from a range of sources can provide a benchmark of performance in 2018 to 2019 and will inform the new committee’s work programme. Examples of these sources are set out below. The annual surveys show some positive improvements in the scores from small businesses and agents on indicators most aligned with the Charter.

Due to a change in methodology in compiling the responses, we are not able to make direct comparisons with 2017 in the individuals annual survey. Individuals are now surveyed online and in previous reports they were questioned via phone. All sampled households were sent an invitation to take part by post, and although the survey was primarily conducted online, participants could request to complete the survey on paper to ensure inclusion for those unable or unwilling to complete the survey online.

Other external reports listed below have also provided some valuable pointers to areas where HMRC might look to improve its customer experience and which the new committee will want to examine in the future.

3.1 Individuals, small businesses and agents annual customer survey

Read the HMRC individuals, small business and agents customer survey 2018.

The questions in the individuals, small businesses and agents survey do not directly ask customers about their experience of Your Charter, but draw together groups of related questions to provide insight about elements of the Charter. For example, in presenting views on one of the Charter rights to ‘provide a helpful, efficient and effective service’, we have used customer views about how easy it is to find information, how good that information is, the perception of whether HMRC gets transactions right, and the acceptability of the time taken.

The detailed 2018 results for these questions are set out in the tables in Appendix 2.

Positive ratings of overall customer experience increased between 2017 and 2018 for small businesses (to 76% from 74%) and agents (to 52% up from 48%). Individuals had an overall customer experience score of 63% in 2018. The results are not comparable to previous years because in 2018 the survey moved from being telephone-based to a mainly online interview for the individuals survey, while making a paper option available for those unable or unwilling to go online. The change in methodology followed the development of online data collection methods, and concerns over the long-term viability and cost-effectiveness of telephone interviewing.

Positive ratings for confidence in the way HMRC does its job increased slightly since 2017 for small businesses (59% up from 58%) and agents (43% up from 41%). In 2018 half (51%) of individuals were confident in how HMRC does its job, although again these results are not comparable to previous years, given the change in methodology.

3.2 Other sources of insight about HMRC’s performance against Your Charter in 2018 to 2019

The House of Lords

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee made several recommendations about HMRC’s culture, including the role of the Adjudicator and the work of the new Customer Experience Committee in its report The Powers of HMRC: Treating Taxpayers Fairly published in December 2018. The Customer Experience Committee will play an important role in overseeing [the commitments made by the government and HMRC in the responses](https://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/economic-affairs/Govt HMRC Powers report 22 Jan 2019 .pdf0 to the report.

The Adjudicator’s Office

The Adjudicator’s Office provides regular reports to HMRC on its complaint handling processes throughout the year and makes recommendations for improvements. In the Adjudicator’s Office Annual Report 2018 to 2019, the Adjudicator identified key themes from an investigation of individual complaints, that in its view HMRC could improve on. The Customer Experience Committee is working to help HMRC as the department continues to address the themes identified in the report:

• complaint handling – ‘the purpose of complaint handling and good practice is not consistently understood or applied’
• policies – ‘when developing new systems and approaches, insufficient consideration is given to how customer issues will be dealt with when they fall outside documented policies and there is a lack of flexibility to resolve customer issues’
• culture – ‘a narrow approach to following process, even where departmental errors are identified and the impact on the customer is not properly acknowledged or assessed’
• customer focus – ‘activity is often driven by internal departmental needs and focus, rather than an external customer perspective’

Customer representative forums

In setting its work programme and areas of focus, the committee has also drawn on the feedback and insight provided by the department’s other customer representative forums. For example, in the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board (ABAB) Annual Report 2019, ABAB commented on a survey it ran with small businesses. The aim of the survey was to help the advisory board understand the issues businesses faced during interactions and engagement with HMRC. The survey showed:

• too many businesses were not prepared for the move to Making Tax Digital, and felt that they needed further information and support around its introduction
• some small businesses had difficulty communicating with HMRC
• businesses experienced an increased legislative burden around tax compliance

Appendix 1 - Members of the Customer Experience Committee

Below is a list of the Non-Executive Directors of HMRC and independent advisers making up the Customer Experience Committee, along with positions they hold and their experience.

Name	Current positions and experience
Mervyn Walker (Current Chair)	With his background as a lawyer, Mervyn has broad experience in a range of roles in large customer service and industrial companies. He has been Group Human Resources Director at 3 FTSE-listed companies – British Airways, Mondi and Anglo American. He has extensive experience of organisational transformation in large and complex organisations. He was appointed as a Non-Executive Director with HMRC in September 2014 and became Lead Non-Executive in January 2017 and Chair of the Customer Experience Committee in April 2019.
Joanna Baldwin (Founding Chair)	Joanna has spent her career advocating the customer’s point of view. A marketing and digital strategist by profession, Joanna’s work spans a broad range of business sectors. She holds, or has held, positions in private and not-for-profit organisations. She was appointed as a Non-Executive Director of HMRC at the start of 2016, becoming Chair of the Charter Committee from 2017 and subsequently the Customer Experience Committee until her retirement from the Board of HMRC at the end of March 2019.
Alice Maynard CBE	Alice is a Non-Executive Director with HMRC and has dedicated her career to improving organisations that are the building blocks of society – transport, housing and social care organisations. She holds positions in a number of public sector and not-for-profit organisations. Alice combines her understanding of how business works and of social issues to help the organisations she works with thrive, while working towards a fairer society.
Juliette Scott	Juliette is a Non-Executive Director for HMRC. She is also a non-executive board member at Versus Arthritis (formerly known as Arthritis Research UK) and provides advisory services through her consultancy business. Juliette was previously at eBay – firstly on the board of eBay UK as the Director of Customer Insight, and in her last role she was responsible for customer insight and analytics across Europe. Juliette was introduced into the world of data insight through her time at customer data science company dunnhumby, where she worked in senior roles across many areas at Tesco.
John Whiting CBE	John is a Non-Executive Director of HMRC and was previously the Tax Director of the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), a part-time role he held since the OTS was established. Until 2013, he was the Tax Policy Director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and before that, he was a tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is also a Board member of Revenue Scotland.
Jean-François Bessiron	Jean-François is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee. He is a global leader with more than 20 years’ experience in supply chain/commercial operations and digital marketing and technology. He has held senior leadership positions with FTSE100 and NASDAQ quoted companies at Kingfisher, TechData, Amazon and most recently at Groupon, where he is International Vice President.
Leonie Foster	Leonie is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee. She is on the operating board of Dunelm, the UK homewares retailer. She holds accountability for the end-to-end customer experience across digital, store format and marketing and for driving high growth areas of web and furniture. Before joining Dunelm, Leonie spent 5 years at Tesco where she led the insight, advertising and Clubcard teams and 5 years at OC&C strategy consultants.
Joseph Gordon	Joe is an Independent Advisor on the Customer Experience Committee. He is the Head of first direct Bank and has held this post for the past 3 years, through such time first direct has won every major industry and pan industry award on customer experience and satisfaction. With a degree in business management he was taken on in a graduate programme by Sainsbury’s. Starting on the shop floor he worked his way through various management roles in Operations, Supply Chain and Strategy. He moved to BT on a fast-track management programme with roles in Finance, Marketing, Digital and Operations including running large customer facing operations around the world. From BT he joined HSBC where he became Head of UK Customer Contact, before he came to first direct in 2016. Customer experience, staff satisfaction and agile ways of working are at the heart of Joe’s approach.
Steven Martin	Steven is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee. He is currently Managing Director of International Data at LiveRamp following his recent move from the post of Managing Director of Consulting and Analytics in the same organisation. His new role focuses on helping clients to make the most of both their own customer data and other data they can access about their customers from partners and suppliers.
Andrew Stephenson	Andrew is an independent adviser on the Customer Experience Committee and has been Group People Director at Lookers, the UK’s listed automotive dealer group, since May 2016. Reporting to the CEO, Andrew is responsible for the HR function and people agenda for more than 8,500 employees across the UK and Ireland. Andrew also leads the IT function and is responsible for customer experience across the company’ 31 franchised manufacturer brands. Previously, Andrew spent 7 years at DFS furniture as group HR and property director, a function that included customer services and customer experience.

Charter Committee members whose roles have ended

Below is a list of members of the Charter Committee whose roles ceased when the new Customer Experience Committee was formed.

Name	Current positions and experience
Natalie Doig	Natalie Doig has more than 18 years’ experience in the field of disability rights, equality and diversity – work she continues in her role as Director of Hareonna Diversity Ltd. She has worked with organisations to improve the representation for disabled people, and particularly those with a visual impairment. On the Charter Committee, she represented groups who needed extra support, including small businesses.
Dr Anne Kirk	Dr Anne Kirk is a passionate customer advocate, with more than 20 years’ experience in roles in both industry and consulting, across retail and financial services. She is Customer Director at Swinton Group with responsibility for brand, marketing, PR and customer experience, digital, insurer relationship management, product development, pricing and analytics.
David Oxley	David Oxley built his career in creating digital and security systems. He is currently Director of Engineering Quality at McAfee, where he works to improve the engineering processes and practices, ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality security products into the corporate and consumer markets. He is also a trustee and treasurer for the Buckinghamshire Disability Service (BuDS).

Appendix 2 - Measuring HMRC’s performance against Charter commitments: 2018 customer survey questions

Individuals

Note: Individuals survey – In 2018 we changed to an online survey, having successfully trialled this approach in 2017. The change in survey method means 2018 online survey scores for individuals are not directly comparable to the 2015 to 2017 telephone survey scores.

Charter commitment	Survey statement	Percentage of individuals who agree
Respect you and treat you as honest:
	HMRC are approachable	64%
	HMRC treat customers fairly	74%
Provide a helpful, efficient and effective service:
	It was easy to find information	53%
	HMRC gets transactions right	66%
	Quality of information is good	61%
	Time taken is acceptable	59%
Be professional and act with integrity:
	HMRC systems prevented mistakes	49%
	HMRC are efficient and do not waste money	34%
	HMRC ensures all customers pay/receive the correct amounts	39%
Protect your information and respect your privacy:
	HMRC ensures data and personal information is treated confidentially	66%
Accept that someone else can represent you:
	HMRC made it easy for someone to act on your behalf	76% [see note below]
Deal with complaints quickly and fairly:
	HMRC resolved any queries or issues	61%
Tackle those who bend or break the rules:
	HMRC apply penalties and sanctions equally	34%

Note: This is the figure for individuals using a professional adviser. The figure for anyone receiving help whether professional or from another source was 66%.

Agents

Charter commitment	Survey statement	Percentage of agents who agree	Percentage point change between 2017 and 2018
Respect you and treat you as honest:
	HMRC were professional	71%	+4ppt*
	HMRC treat customers fairly	66%	+4ppt*
Provide a helpful, efficient and effective service:
	It was easy to find information	45%	+2ppt
	HMRC gets transactions right	55%	+3ppt*
	Quality of information is good	58%	+2ppt
	Time taken is acceptable	37%	+3ppt*
Be professional and act with integrity:
	HMRC systems prevented mistakes	43%	-
	HMRC are efficient and do not waste money	20%	+2ppt
	HMRC ensures all customers pay/receive the correct amounts	43%	+1ppt
Protect your information and respect your privacy:
	HMRC ensures data and personal information is treated confidentially	78%	-2ppt
Deal with complaints quickly and fairly:
	HMRC resolved any queries or issues	48%	+3ppt
Tackle those who bend or break the rules:
	HMRC apply penalties and sanctions equally	36%	-

Note: An asterisk * indicates a statistically significant percentage point (ppt) change. A change of plus or minus 3 ppts may be statistically significant for one dimension, but may not be significant for another.

Small businesses

Charter commitment	Survey statement	Percentage of small businesses who agree	Percentage point change between 2017 and 2018
Respect you and treat you as honest:
	HMRC were professional	85%	+2ppt
	HMRC treat customers fairly	81%	+3ppt
Provide a helpful, efficient and effective service:
	It was easy to find information	63%	+4ppt*
	HMRC gets transactions right	76%	+2ppt
	Quality of information is good	70%	+2ppt
	Time taken is acceptable	69%	+2ppt
Be professional and act with integrity:
	HMRC systems prevented mistakes	61%	-
	HMRC are efficient and do not waste money	36%	+5ppt*
	HMRC ensures all customers pay/receive the correct amounts	50%	-
Protect your information and respect your privacy:
	HMRC ensures data and personal information is treated confidentially	74%	+3ppt
Accept that someone else can represent you:
	HMRC made it easy for someone to act on your behalf	79%	+2ppt
Deal with complaints quickly and fairly:
	HMRC resolved any queries or issues	68%	+2ppt
Tackle those who bend or break the rules:
	HMRC apply penalties and sanctions equally	37%	+3ppt*

Note: An asterisk * indicates a statistically significant percentage point (ppt) change. A change of plus or minus 3ppts may be statistically significant for one dimension, but may not be significant for another.