HMRC monthly performance update: October 2019
Published 5 December 2019
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 | 0.4m | 21.3m [1] | 17.6m [1] |
iForms received | 145,081 | 1,270,655 | 1,005,564 |
Calls received | 3,170,135 | 26,711,503 | 26,072,550 |
Post received [2] [4] | 1,272,572 | 10,969,650 | 11,510,624 |
New complaints received [3] | 4,915 | 38,245 | 43,625 |
Notes
- The number of people who have set up a personal tax account since its launch in December 2015.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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% | 80.7% | 80.0% | 80% |
Customer iForms cleared within 7 days of receipt | 88.8% | 87.5% | 93.5% | 95% |
Average speed of answering a customer’s call [1] | 5 minutes 00 seconds | 7 minutes 18 seconds | 4 minutes 59 seconds | 05:00 minutes |
Customers waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser | 17.6% | 34.1% | 17.7% | No more than 15% |
Customer post cleared within 15 days of receipt [2] | 80.2% | 64.0% | 81.0% | 80% |
Customer post cleared within 40 days of receipt [3] | 91.9% | 82.5% | 96.7% | 95% |
Handle tax credit and Child Benefit claims and change of circumstance (UK) [3] | 16.3 | 12.4 | 11.8 | An average of 22 days |
Handle tax credit and Child Benefit claims and change of circumstance (international) [3] | 64.4 | 62.4 | 59.4 | An average of 92 days |
Notes
- 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.
- Post turnaround refers to post to which customers require a response.
- 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%
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 | |||||
Year-to-date | 77.6 | 78.4 | 79.5 | 80.2 | 80.4 | 80.5 | 80.7 |
3. iForms
Our target for 2019 to 2020 is to turnaround 95% of iForms within 7 days for the year. We received more than 145,000 iForms this month and we turned around:
88.8% of customer iForms within 7 days
4. Phones
We aim for a consistent service across our phone helplines. We received almost 3.2 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:
5 minutes 00 seconds
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 | |||||
Year-to-date | 9:17 | 10:03 | 9:00 | 8.12 | 7.47 | 7:40 | 7.18 |
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:
17.6%
Customers who waited for 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 | |||||
Year-to-date | 47.7 | 53.2 | 45.6 | 40.2 | 37.6 | 36.7 | 34.1 |
5. Post
We received more than 850,000 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:
80.2% of customer post within 15 days
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 | 60.6 | 73.9 | 83.1 | 80.2 | |||||
Year-to-date | 51.9 | 51.7 | 53.1 | 55.0 | 58.6 | 62.0 | 64.0 |
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:
16.3 days
And we handled claims and changes of circumstances for international customers within an average of:
64.4 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 4,915 Tier 1 complaints this month.
Tier 1 complaints received
Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2019 to 2020 | 5,676 | 5,696 | 5,035 | 5,779 | 5,441 | 5,703 | 4,915 | |||||
2018 to 2019 | 6,583 | 6,742 | 6,030 | 6,321 | 6,198 | 5,686 | 6,065 |
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 | 33.8 | 37.0 | 36.5 | 40.2 | 38.6 | 37.9 | 37.1 | |||||
Tier 1 complaints partially upheld | 16.1 | 15.7 | 16.9 | 15.5 | 16.5 | 16.7 | 16.2 | |||||
Tier 1 complaints not upheld | 50.0 | 47.3 | 46.6 | 44.3 | 44.8 | 45.4 | 46.8 |
Note: due to rounding up or down, these figures may not add up to 100%.
7.2 Tier 2 complaints
We received 401 Tier 2 complaints this month.
Tier 2 complaints received
Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2019 to 2020 | 369 | 330 | 315 | 351 | 313 | 339 | 401 | |||||
2018 to 2019 | 420 | 437 | 514 | 477 | 429 | 374 | 474 |
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 | 22.9 | 22.9 | 26.3 | 22.0 | 25.8 | |||||
Tier 2 complaints partially upheld | 27.8 | 25.3 | 25.6 | 28.5 | 28.9 | 25.2 | 24.1 | |||||
Tier 2 complaints not upheld | 54.6 | 47.3 | 51.5 | 48.7 | 44.8 | 52.8 | 50.1 |
Note: due to rounding up or down, these figures may not add up to 100%.