Corporate report

HMRC monthly performance update: December 2019

Published 6 February 2020

These figures show how we’re performing against our main customer service objectives, which are about:

  • how we’re helping our online customers
  • how quickly we answer their phone calls
  • how quickly we handle their post
  • how we handle complaints

Our objectives are set by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and are published in our single departmental plan.

1. At a glance

These are the figures for our customer service contact volumes, and performance against our customer service objectives.

1.1 Contact volumes

Note: demand for our customer services may vary significantly between months due to the seasonal nature of revenue and customs administration.

Current month Year-to-date since April 2019 Compared to year-to-date 2018-19
Personal tax account new users 0.2m 21.8m [1] 18.1m [1]
iForms received 102,232 1,544,928 1,204,868
Calls received 2,211,272 31,853,367 31,660,384
Post received [2] [4] 931,146 13,349,077 14,621,333
New complaints received [3] 3,490 48,091 53,933

Notes

  1. The number of people who have set up a personal tax account since its launch in December 2015.
  2. Post is not always categorised on our live system during the month it is received, meaning that numbers may be revised in subsequent monthly reports.
  3. Complaints are not always logged on our live system during the month they are received, and the numbers may be revised in subsequent monthly reports.
  4. Historically, some parts of Customer Services Group recorded their work by the subject of the task (such as tax credits or Self Assessment) while other areas recorded their work by the contact channel (such as post or phone). Creation of Business Tax & Customs (BT&C) in our Customer Service Group brought together several teams from across HMRC. To support business delivery, an exercise was undertaken to standardise recording. This has highlighted a significant number of work items being reclassified as ‘post’ within BT&C. While these were not recorded in our post statistics, they have always been treated as post and the performance has been aligned to that of our targeted post.

1.2 Performance

Current month Year-to-date since April 2019 Compared to year-to-date 2018-19 Target
Customer satisfaction with digital services 82.1% 81.1% 80.2% 80%
Customer iForms cleared within 7 days of receipt 92.4% 89.4% 93.9% 95%
Average speed of answering a customer’s call [1] 4 minutes 13 seconds 6 minutes 48 seconds 5 minutes 04 seconds 05:00 minutes
Customers waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser 15.1% 30.8% 18.4% No more than 15%
Customer post cleared within 15 days of receipt [2] 80.5% 68.7% 80.8% 80%
Customer post cleared within 40 days of receipt [3] 91.6% 84.6% 97.2% 95%
Handle tax credit and Child Benefit claims and change of circumstance (UK) [3] 15.2 13.4 12.0 An average of 22 days
Handle tax credit and Child Benefit claims and change of circumstance (international) [3] 63.9 62.8 58.6 An average of 92 days

Notes

  1. Average speed of answer data is recorded from the time a customer requests to speak to an adviser, after going through our automated routing response system until the call is answered by the advisor.
  2. Post turnaround refers to post to which customers require a response.
  3. This data is lagged by a month.

The figures reported during the year are compiled from initial management information to provide an indication of our performance. They are subject to revision and audit. Final full-year performance figures will be published in our annual report and accounts.

2. Customer satisfaction with digital services

Our target for 2019 to 2020 is that 80% of customers are either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with our digital services for the year.

This month, the percentage of customers who were either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with our digital services was:

82.1%

Graph showing customer satisfaction with digital services - the information is repeated in the table below.

Customers ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with our digital services (%) against our target for the year of 80%

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Monthly 77.6 79.1 81.4 81.9 81.1 81.1 82.1 82.6 82.1      
Year-to-date 77.6 78.4 79.5 80.2 80.4 80.5 80.7 81.0 81.1      

3. iForms

Our target for 2019 to 2020 is to turnaround 95% of iForms within 7 days for the year. We received more than 102,000 iForms this month and we turned around:

92.4% of customer iForms within 7 days

4. Phones

We aim for a consistent service across our phone helplines. We received more than 2.2 million calls this month.

Our targets for 2019 to 2020 are:

  • to answer customer calls within an average of 5 minutes for the year
  • to ensure that no more than 15% of customer calls are waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser for the year

4.1 Average speed of answering a call

This month, we answered our phones in an average of:

4 minutes 13 seconds

Graph showing the average speed of answer for our phone lines - this information is repeated in the table below.

Average speed of answering a phone call (minutes:seconds) against our target for the year of 5:00 minutes

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Monthly 9:17 10:48 6:50 6.17 5.57 7:02 5:00 4.53 4.13      
Year-to-date 9:17 10:03 9:00 8.12 7.47 7:40 7.18 7.02 6.48      

4.2 Customer calls waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser

This month, the percentage of customer calls that took more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser:

15.1%

Graph showing the percentage of customer calls that waited more than 10 minutes before the call was answered - this information is repeated in the table below.

Customers who waited for more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser (%) against our target for the year of 15%

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Monthly 47.7 58.4 30.2 27.1 26.1 32.0 17.6 17.3 15.1      
Year-to-date 47.7 53.2 45.6 40.2 37.6 36.7 34.1 32.2 30.8      

5. Post

We received more than 720,000 items of post this month for which customers require a response.

Our target for 2019 to 2020 is to turnaround 80% of post for the year within 15 days.

This month, we turned around:

80.5% of customer post within 15 days

Graph showing percentage of post handled within 15 working days - this information is repeated in the table below.

Post turned around within 15 days (%) against our target for the year of 80%

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Monthly 51.9 51.5 56.3 66.6 78.6 79.7 80.2 84.8 80.5      
Year-to-date 51.9 51.7 53.1 56.6 60.8 63.4 65.3 67.7 68.7      

6. Tax credits and Child Benefit

Our targets for 2019 to 2020 are:

  • to handle claims and changes of circumstances for UK customers within an average of 22 days for the year
  • to handle claims and changes of circumstances for international customers within an average of 92 days for the year

This month, we handled claims and changes of circumstances for UK customers within an average of:

15.2 days

And we handled claims and changes of circumstances for international customers within an average of:

63.9 days

7. Complaints

We want to get all our interactions with customers right first time, but if a customer is unhappy with our service, we aim to resolve their complaint quickly and fairly.

Read more detailed guidance on how we handle and resolve complaints.

Definitions:

  • a ‘Tier 1 complaint’ is when a customer complains and we aim to resolve their case at this stage
  • a ‘Tier 2 complaint’ is when a customer is dissatisfied with our decision on their initial complaint (Tier 1) and they have asked us to look at their concerns again
  • ‘fully upheld’ means we agree with the main part of a customer’s complaint
  • ‘partially upheld’ means we agree with some, but not all of, a customer’s complaint
  • ‘not upheld’ means we don’t agree with a customer’s complaint

7.1 Tier 1 complaints

We received 3,490 Tier 1 complaints this month.

Graph showing the number of Tier 1 complaints received - this information is repeated in the table below.

Tier 1 complaints received

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
2019 to 2020 5,692 5,712 5,055 5,830 5,505 5,820 5,776 5,211 3,490      
2018 to 2019 6,583 6,742 6,030 6,321 6,198 5,686 6,065 5,768 4,540      

Note: complaints are not always logged on our live system during the month they are received and the numbers can, therefore, be revised upwards for subsequent monthly reports. The current month will be subject to greatest revision.

Tier 1 complaints cleared (%)

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Tier 1 complaints fully upheld 33.9 37.0 36.6 40.2 38.7 37.9 37.3 34.3 33.7      
Tier 1 complaints partially upheld 16.1 15.7 16.9 15.5 16.6 16.8 16.2 17.6 17.8      
Tier 1 complaints not upheld 49.9 47.3 46.5 44.2 44.8 45.2 46.5 48.1 48.5      

Note: due to rounding up or down, these figures may not add up to 100%.

7.2 Tier 2 complaints

We received 296 Tier 2 complaints this month.

Graph showing the number of Tier 2 complaints received - this information is repeated in the table below.

Tier 2 complaints received

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
2019 to 2020 369 330 314 352 321 346 431 443 296      
2018 to 2019 420 437 514 477 429 374 474 506 338      

Note: complaints are not always logged on our live system during the month they are received and the numbers can, therefore, be revised upwards for subsequent monthly reports. The current month will be subject to greatest revision.

Tier 2 complaints cleared (%)

Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Tier 2 complaints fully upheld 17.6 27.4 22.7 22.9 26.3 21.9 25.8 25.5 19.7      
Tier 2 complaints partially upheld 27.8 25.3 26.3 28.5 29.5 25.8 24.6 25.7 27.1      
Tier 2 complaints not upheld 54.6 47.3 51.0 48.7 44.1 52.3 49.6 48.8 53.2      

Note: due to rounding up or down, these figures may not add up to 100%.