Corporate report

A new service for those needing the most help

Updated 12 February 2014

HMRC is introducing a new service for customers who need extra help to get their taxes and entitlements right. The service will offer customers who need extra help more in-depth support on the phone and a mobile advisory service if they need a face-to-face appointment. The new service will replace our network of Enquiry Centres. This briefing explains how we will introduce this service across the whole of the UK in the summer.

To find out more, visit our website at hmrc.gov.uk/extrahelp

1. Supporting customers in a way that suits them

The new service involves identifying those customers who need extra help and then offering them the support that suits them best, whether by phone or in person at a place convenient to them. Not only is this a better service for the customers who really need extra help, but it is more cost-effective and flexible for HMRC to administer.

There are several elements to the new service, which we tested and refined in a seven-month pilot in north-east England in 2013:

• Contact Centre staff will identify when a customer needs extra help, and will direct them to the most appropriate tailored service
• specialist phone advisers will take the time to resolve tax and tax credits queries in-depth in one call, accessing experts from different parts of HMRC during the call, so that customers will not have to speak to multiple advisers
• where a face-to-face meeting is most appropriate, a new team of mobile advisers will arrange to meet customers at convenient locations in the community, or at their home
• HMRC will work more closely with voluntary and community sector organisations. We will also make it easier for them to direct customers needing extra help to HMRC, and for us to direct customers to appropriate voluntary organisations where they need independent advice or someone to act on their behalf
• we have introduced simpler systems for authorising third parties to deal with us on a customer’s behalf, such as friends and family members

The new telephone and mobile advisory service will be introduced across the UK at the end of May. We plan to close our network of Enquiry Centres by the end of June.

2. Why change is needed

We know that customers need extra help either because they have difficulty coping with their affairs or because they are dealing with a major life event, such as preparing for retirement or a family bereavement. Our Enquiry Centres have provided an excellent service over the years to those who can access them, but the number of people using them has been falling for several years and our research has shown that most of the customers who do use them do not need extra help and are simply directed online or to our Contact Centres.

Many of the estimated 1.5 million customers who need extra help do not live near an Enquiry Centre, which means they incur extra costs to get there, or are unable to access the help they need. Enquiry Centre visitor numbers have more than halved, from five million in 2005-06 to two million in 2012-13, and some of our Enquiry Centres are now open just one day a week because local demand is so low.

During 2013 Enquiry Centres visitor numbers have continued to decline, and have dropped below two million visitors. Our research has also shown that 89 per cent of customers who visited an Enquiry Centre in 2013 did not need a face-to-face meeting, and were able to get the help they needed over the phone or online. At the same time, the number of appointments has dropped considerably: there was a 42 per cent drop in appointments between 2012 and 2013 in the Enquiry Centre network (outside the pilot area), from 329,523 appointments in 2012 to 189,863 in 2013.

3. Learning from the pilot and consultation

We closed 13 Enquiry Centres in north-east England in order to run a live pilot, from June to December 2013. We used the pilot to test and refine the new service, making a number of changes as we gathered feedback from customers, stakeholders and our own staff. The feedback from the pilot was positive and independent research showed a marked improvement for customers, compared to previous experiences with HMRC.

From March to May last year, we also ran a public consultation on the new service. It was made available on the HMRC website and was publicised among customers, voluntary bodies, charities, stakeholders, agents and professional bodies. It was open to any group, organisation or individual with an interest in the issues and we received 457 responses. A significant number praised the service that HMRC provides through the current Enquiry Centre network and expressed concerns about the prospect of change. However, many organisations who work with us and customers who need extra help recognised the benefits of the new model.

We know from our own research that some customers who need extra help are often unsure about whether their query has been fully resolved, and what the next steps are. This can cause them anxiety, so we have developed additional training for our extra help advisers to communicate clearly where customers are in the process, and when enquiries have been resolved.

4. A successful service driven by our people

The closure of the Enquiry Centre network affects around 1,300 staff at HMRC offices across the country. The new service will employ around 450 people and we will redeploy as many existing Enquiry Centre staff as possible to the service.

We have informed all Enquiry Centre staff about the decision to roll out the new service and have explained that they now have three options to consider:

• applying to work in the new service
• applying for a voluntary exit, to leave HMRC on the best financial terms
• joining a redeployment pool and seeking a new job within HMRC or in another government department

Our ability to redeploy our people will depend on where they are based, how close they are to other HMRC offices or other government departments, and whether their skills and experience are transferrable to other roles. Staff who have chosen to be redeployed will always be given priority when filling vacancies.