How are we doing? HMRC’s 2013 to 2014 half-yearly performance
Updated 23 January 2014
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-are-we-doing-hmrcs-2013-to-2014-half-yearly-performance/how-are-we-doing-hmrcs-2013-to-2014-half-yearly-performance
HMRC assesses its performance against a range of compliance, operational and customer service measures. This issue briefing looks at our performance against our targets for April to September 2013*.
We regularly publish more detailed information on our performance on our website - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/business-plan-indicators
For more information about our work please visit our website at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs
1. Overall performance
We look at a range of compliance, operational and customer service measures throughout the year to assess our performance. Results for April to September 2013 show a strong start to the year on securing additional tax revenues, but our customer service standards are below where we want them to be.
2. Additional revenues
Provisional results show we collected more than £8.8 billion in additional revenues from compliance activity in the first half of 2013-14 – our best-ever performance at this point in the year.
3. Introducing Real Time Information
We introduced Real Time Information (or RTI) in April, the biggest change to PAYE since the system was designed 70 years ago. RTI brings PAYE up to date with today’s employment patterns, where people change jobs more frequently than in the past and can have more than one job or pension.
More than 1.59 million PAYE schemes with employees (more than 92.6 per cent) have started reporting in real time. We have now aligned more than 47.5 million individual live PAYE records (more than 99 per cent), making sure that the employee record is matched with the correct employer scheme.
4. Call handling
From April to September 2013, we handled 72.7 per cent of all call attempts. This is an improvement on the same period last year, but below our 90 per cent target.
We experienced high caller demand in the first half of the year. We did not meet our target because of a number of factors, including technology-related issues, using extra people on our employer helpline to support the introduction of RTI and a very busy final week leading up to the tax credits renewal deadline on 31 July.
We had planned to introduce new automated speech features on our most popular phone lines during this period, allowing us to answer more calls. We took the decision to delay these changes until later in the year, while we fine-tuned the new service ahead of a wider roll out, which began this month.
We are also moving to an increasingly flexible way of operating, where work can be moved between teams according to priority and customer demand.
5. Tax credits and Child Benefit claims
From April to August 2013, we cleared UK tax credits and Child Benefit claims and changes of circumstance in an average of 15.8 days – well within the target of 22 days.
Over the same period, international claims and changes of circumstance were cleared in an average of 87.8 days, ahead of the 92-day target.
6. Post
From April to September 2013, we cleared 77 per cent of post within 15 working days, which is below our target of 80 per cent, although improved from the April to June result of 70 per cent.
Post-handling performance has been affected by a number of factors in the busy early part of the year, including the deployment of teams from post to phone lines during peak periods of customer demand.
More of our operational teams are being trained to deal flexibly with customer enquiries in whatever form they come to us, whether it’s a phone call, a letter or a work item generated by our IT system. We expect performance in this area to continue improving throughout 2013-14.
*The figures contained in this briefing are initial management information to provide an indication of our performance during 2013-14, and are subject to revision and audit. Final performance figures will be made available when we publish the audited accounts and departmental report.