Corporate report

The Adjudicator's Office annual report 2025

Published 20 October 2025

The Adjudicator’s Office annual report 2025

The role of the Adjudicator

The role of the Adjudicator was created in 1993 to introduce an independent tier of complaint handling for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) (collectively ‘the Departments’). Since December 2019 we have held an independent role in reviewing decisions made under the Home Office’s Windrush Compensation Scheme (WCS).

The Adjudicator’s Office provides a free, impartial, and independent service and investigates all cases within its remit. We resolve individual cases but also highlight trends in both customer service and complaint handling. The Adjudicator will continue to push HMRC to improve quality in complaint handling, so that customers will only feel the need to escalate more sensitive and complex complaints to the Adjudicator’s Office.

The Adjudicator expects HMRC, the VOA and Home Office to explain their decisions clearly and with reference, where appropriate, to relevant rules, guidance or legislation. They should also show an understanding of individual customer circumstances. Our GOV.UK pages set out the issues that the Adjudicator can look at, and the boundaries to our scope of enquiry for HMRC, the VOA, and the Home Office Windrush Compensation Scheme.

Our Service Level Agreements underpin the role of our office in providing an impartial, proportionate consideration of HMRC /VOA complaints and Tier 2 Reviews for the WCS, without interference.

There are no targets for the number of cases upheld and we make all final decisions or reviews on cases with the approval or under the delegated authority of the Adjudicator.

The Adjudicator is supported across two locations. Most of our people are specialist investigators, supported by specific leads for people matters, quality assurance, learning and development, stakeholder engagement and business planning.

Our Vision and Role

Our Vision

The Adjudicator’s Office vision is to work closely with the Departments to achieve the following positive outcomes:

• an efficient customer-focused complaint handling service
• high-quality, fair decisions
• insight which drives action to improve service for customers
• making the Adjudicator’s Office a great place to work and support our people to deliver our vision.

Our Role

Our work remains guided by our Service Level Agreements with our three key stakeholder organisations: HMRC, VOA and the Home Office for the WCS. The core purpose of the Adjudicator and the Adjudicator’s Office is to:

• resolve complaints by providing an accessible and flexible service and make fair, trusted and impartial decisions
• support and encourage effective resolution throughout the complaints handling process whilst being responsive to customer needs
• use insight and expertise to support our stakeholders to learn from complaints and improve services to customers. In relation to HMRC and the VOA, this will be in line with their Charter commitments.

The Adjudicator’s foreword – Mike McMahon

Mike McMahon

My foreword this year concentrates on opportunity. For us, the Departments we work with and, most importantly, our mutual customers.

Our Head of Office, Richard Fowler, sets out the challenges we have had as an organisation in his update below. But to set the scene for what is a forward-looking annual report - grounded in what we have learned this year - an overview may help.

Put simply, we have been incredibly busy.

The reason for an increase in investigations, particularly for HMRC/VOA cases, was due in part to the number of complaints we have taken into remit. During the reporting year, we amended our Service Level Agreement with HMRC/VOA. This strengthened our role as a key source of insight for HMRC/VOA and, as importantly, re-emphasised our job to hold HMRC and the VOA to account in relation to their Customer Charters.

This meant in practice that we took on cases we have not previously, for example where HMRC may have followed guidance, but that guidance was not sufficient to protect customers.

Now, returning to opportunity.

HMRC had a challenging start to the financial year 2024. By the summer of 2024, complaint volumes were high. The media was reporting what many customers already knew - it was often incredibly difficult to speak to someone from HMRC on the phone and targets for timeliness were being missed. HMRC’s decision to close phone lines in the summer - it said to free up resource - had to be reversed following a negative response from customers and stakeholders. Significant investment was required to steady the ship.

Since the summer of 2024, HMRC’s service improved a lot. Customer satisfaction reached highs not seen for a very long time. There was a blip in January 2025 - which coincided with HMRC’s busy Self-Assessment peak period – but HMRC ended the year very close to its satisfaction targets across the entire year. I am cautiously confident that HMRC has a good plan to harness digital approaches (that most customers appear to favour) whilst supporting those people who struggle to engage in that way.

A significant statement of intent more recently was HMRC’s announcement that Myrtle Lloyd has been appointed Chief Customer Officer. This role, as I understand it, allows HMRC to co-ordinate customer-focused activity not in just one part of the Department, but across HMRC. That it is headed by a member of HMRC’s Executive team ensures the customer’s voice is heard at the highest levels within the Department.

But there is work to do.

HMRC’s Charter is in my view the blueprint for what great service can and should look like. I have seen evidence of the Charter being deployed to the benefit of customers. But after five years of speaking to HMRC about its potential, it is time for the Charter to be fully embraced in every corner of the Department. HMRC has a legal obligation to have a Customer Charter; it is less clear what obligation there is to use or comply with it.

For example, I see guidance that is not easily understood by either the customer or HMRC’s own people because of its complexity and therefore needs to improve, with work underway to address this. I see compliance investigations that sometimes last years, and where customers report that the power sits firmly with HMRC to the detriment of great customer service. And I have seen a minority of High-Volume Repayment Agents enabled to act unscrupulously by weak customer protection. Complaints would fall and customer satisfaction would rise if HMRC’s people were fully empowered to really look at both customer service and complaints through the lens of the Charter.

I believe HMRC is at a place where it is ready and able fully to embrace the Charter - making it a key, if not the key, consideration in all that it does. This is a watershed moment for HMRC, and I strongly urge it to grasp the opportunity its hard work to improve affords it.

I have spoken before about the improvement I have seen, year on year at the VOA. In the reporting year I had the opportunity to speak at the VOA’s in-house complaint conference. I was very pleased to see the passion and commitment from its people to improve. None of us get everything right - what matters is progression. The VOA has also seen an increase in complaints recently and this will be a challenge for them. But I have confidence that it has the people, the systems and, importantly, the way of thinking to ensure complaint handling remains focused on fairness.

The Windrush Compensation Scheme (WCS) is critical work for us because it matters so much. The scheme is not perfect - I suspect this will resonate with many from the Windrush generation and those who support them. Time and again we hear heartbreaking stories of what people went through.

The scheme is broadly there to remedy disadvantage people suffered because they were unable to demonstrate the lawful status that they had. But it does not compensate for the day-to-day awfulness so many people experienced. Every story is similar and unique. The casual racism that society tolerated, closed-shop employment or the grim inevitability of housing fit for no-one.

What I do also see though with the Home Office team we work with is a determination to do this work to the best of its ability. Of course, they do not get everything right and we send back cases where that is apparent. But they listen to us and they do try to make changes to the scheme to improve it. I do though know that there is deep suspicion amongst many that it is the Home Office that administer the scheme given its historic role.

Of course, WCS should never have been needed in the first place. So I hope the wider lesson from the Windrush generation is to act with fairness and decency in all that we do.

The Home Office has considerably increased its resources in the last year and that has seen it progress through cases at an unprecedented rate. That in turn has led to a huge increase in our casework, which in turn has slowed us down. In response we increased our resources and our top priority is getting back within reasonable timeliness standards. We are making up ground at pace without ever compromising on the quality of our work.

I am completely committed to ensuring that the Windrush Generation and their families do not find themselves waiting a minute longer for an objective review than they have to.

Executive Summary – Richard Fowler Head of Office

Richard Fowler

2024-25 is the first year of our new business plan and new vision emphasising efficiency, customer focus, high quality decisions and insight which drives action to improve services.

For HMRC/VOA cases we received 2,216 complaints in 2024-25, broadly the same as the 2,239 in 2023-24. However, the nature of these complaints has been changing. Premature complaints, those which come to the Adjudicator’s Office too early as they have not fully been through the HMRC/VOA complaints process, fell 24%. This is good to see as it reflects improvements in timeliness in 2024-25 within HMRC’s complaints handling.

As Mike says above, we have also been taking more HMRC and VOA cases into full investigation rather than judging them as out of remit.

This has meant that the number of full investigations has increased by almost 40%, from 787 in 2023-24 to 1,097 this year. Our performance against our four-month service standard remained at over 75% of cases across the year.

However, it means we have a higher number of customers with cases outstanding at the end of March 2025 which will mean that fewer customers will receive a decision within four months in 2025-26. We will be tackling this in 2025-26 in order to return to normal levels of service as soon as possible.

Windrush Compensation Scheme cases also increased significantly – 437 this year from 128 last year. We have worked closely with the Home Office to increase our resource focused on these cases and likewise are focusing on reducing our caseload in 2025-26.

We have made good progress in year 1 of our three-year Business Plan. Our work with our stakeholders has continued to be a key priority. We have worked particularly closely with HMRC and the Home Office in not only sharing our insight but also considering how we best ensure it leads to improvements and better outcomes for our mutual customers.

2024-25 has also been a year of investing in our people. We rolled out the Investigation Skills Enhancement Programme for our investigation teams looking at all aspects of a complaints investigation from gathering evidence, assessing what occurred and communicating effectively.

Next year a key focus will be recovering operational performance by tackling our high caseload. In 2024-25 we tested a new way of working through a small pilot where investigators took on more cases but earlier in the process. The aim has been to minimise time where cases are not being progressed, empower our investigators to manage their cases in the way that works best for them and further improve timeliness and communication for our customers. We will roll out learning accordingly and be reviewing our operational processes more widely.

I wanted to end by thanking the team for their hard work in 2024-25. The Adjudicator’s Office is passionate about the role it plays and every day in my first full year in the office I have seen this dedication to providing the best service possible for our customers and stakeholders.

Workload 2024 to 2025 data

HMRC Complaints Received by Quarter	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
Quarter 1	216	292	280
Quarter 2	188	288	388
Quarter 3	212	206	319
Quarter 4	334	256	286
Yearly Total	950	1,042	1,273

VOA Complaints Received by Quarter	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
Quarter 1	9	12	13
Quarter 2	16	12	16
Quarter 3	16	16	18
Quarter 4	16	18	15
Yearly Total	57	58	62

Home Office Cases Received by Quarter	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
Quarter 1	20	31	62
Quarter 2	27	36	143
Quarter 3	10	36	125
Quarter 4	21	34	123
Yearly Total	78	137	453

Total number of cases handled	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
Cases on hand 1 April	241	347[footnote 1]	265[footnote 2]
New cases received	1,085	1,243	1,788
Cases resolved[footnote 3]	957	1,320	1,293
Cases on hand 31 March	369	270	760

Complaints on hand by department on 31 March 2025

The following table shows the breakdown of cases on hand on 31 March 2025 by department.

Department	Complaints on hand
HMRC	481
VOA	18
Home Office	261
Total	760

Outcomes of Cases Received

The following table shows the breakdown of the number of cases we investigated in 2024 to 2025 for HMRC, the VOA and the Home Office. The table also includes information on how many cases were withdrawn by the customer or were deemed out of remit i.e. we could not look at it.

Department	Cases Investigated	Withdrawn	Out of Remit
HMRC	814	29	182
VOA	22	0	28
Home Office	203	7	8
Total	1,039	36	218

Outcomes of Investigations Completed

The following table shows the split between the outcomes of our investigations in 2024 to 2025 for HMRC, the VOA and the Home Office.

Department	Not Upheld	Fully Upheld	Partially Upheld
HMRC	527	53	234
VOA	16	2	4
Home Office	130	15	58
Total	673	70	296

Premature Complaints

The following table shows the number of premature complaints (those that have not completed our stakeholders’ complaint process) that we have seen over the last three years for HMRC, the VOA and the Home Office.

Department	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
HMRC	1,168	1,150	863
VOA	13	8	13
Home Office	10	26	12
Total	1,191	1,184	888

Redress paid

Where appropriate, we recommend HMRC and the VOA pays customers financial redress in recognition of the poor level of service they received, and any relevant costs. We make recommendations in accordance with HMRC’s Complaints and Remedy Guidance. Redress can also include a recommendation that HMRC gives up recovery of a customer’s liability.

The table within the redress section below shows the sums recommended this year for HMRC cases.

Redress (£) 2024 to 2025

The table below shows the breakdown of the redress payments we recommended for HMRC and the VOA. This year we recorded the redress payments under the headings ‘Worry and distress’, ‘Poor complaints handling’, ‘Liability given up’ (i.e. money no longer pursued), ‘Reimbursement of costs’ and ‘Financial loss’.

Category	HMRC	VOA	Total
Worry and distress	£16,861.67	£450.00	£17,311.67
Poor complaints handling	£15,845.00	£125.00	£15,970.00
Liability given up	£17,648.54	-	£17,648.54
Reimbursement of costs	£494.85	-	£494.85
Financial loss	£4,548.33	-	£4,548.33
Total	£55,398.39	£575.00	£55,973.39

Adjudicator’s Office performance against our service standards

Find out how long it takes the Adjudicator’s Office to deal with complaints against HMRC, the VOA and review Home Office decisions on entitlement to compensation, under the Windrush Compensation Scheme. This data includes cases classified as out of the Adjudicator’s Office remit, as set out by our HMRC and VOA Service Level Agreement and our Home Office Service Level Agreement.

Service standard

Cases are resolved within 4 months of receipt.

2024 to 2025 performance

Time Period	Cases resolved within 4 months
April 2024 to March 2025	76% (1666 cases met out of 2180)

2023 to 2024 performance

Time Period	Cases resolved within 4 months
April 2023 to March 2024	82% (2044 cases met out of 2503)

HMRC update and case studies

HMRC’s casework is often challenging, replicating the complex nature of the tax landscape. And the people who use HMRC’s services, replicated of course in our customer base, are diverse. Complaints could be from individuals struggling to understand a tax credits decision, to high-net-worth individuals, or large businesses, supported by significant professional representation.

We have been very clear with HMRC that we support the aims and ambition of its Charter. Our SLA was improved to make it that clear and that we would hold HMRC to account against the Charter in the cases we consider.

HMRC do listen to us when we raise concerns about how cases have been handled. But it can be hard for customers to endure a long complaint process. In every case we uphold or partially uphold, this is great insight for HMRC to ensure the same issue does not happen again.

Below sets out a sample of cases where we think HMRC could have done more, and where it has acted well.

Case Study 1 Decision: Partially Upheld. Business Area: Benefits and Credits

The customer’s complaint was about the recovery of tax credits overpayments for 2012-13 and 2013-14. The customer submitted an overpayment dispute in 2016, but HMRC said that this was out of time to be considered.   

HMRC issued several letters to the customer between 2016 and 2023 which incorrectly stated that Final Award Notices (FANs) had been issued. Our investigation found that a Returned Letter Service (RLS) marker applied to the customer’s record when he separated from his ex-partner, which had prevented any correspondence from being issued.   

The customer told HMRC that he had not received the FANs, but it failed to identify its mistake during the complaints process. It maintained the position that he was too late to dispute the overpayments, which was not the case for the 2013-14 tax year.   

The RLS marker would have prevented any correspondence being issued to the customer and this should have been identified during the complaint process. It is important that each complaint is reviewed with a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ approach and had this happened in this case, it is likely that the RLS marker would have been seen.

In addition to this, HMRC’s Tier 2 review did not tell the customer that he could escalate his complaint to the Adjudicator’s Office. Not being clear about when a final response has been provided and signposting the customer to us, will delay the resolution of complaints.

HMRC’s Charter under ‘Getting things right’ says that HMRC will give its customers accurate, consistent, and clear information. In this case, HMRC failed to identify that an RLS marker had been applied to the customer’s record, preventing the FANs from being issued. 

HMRC’s decision that the customer was out of time to dispute the overpayments was reliant on the FANs having been issued. Not identifying during the complaint process that the RLS marker had been applied led HMRC to make an incorrect decision in this case and resulted in the complaint escalating through the complaint handling process. 

The mistake was not identified until the complaint reached the Adjudicator’s Office. The Charter standard ‘Treating you fairly’ says that HMRC will assume that customers are telling the truth, unless there is good reason to think they’re not. In this case, the customer informed HMRC that they had not received the FANs which should have prompted a closer examination of whether these letters were issued correctly. 

The ‘Getting things right’ and ‘Being responsive’ sections of the Charter both say that HMRC will inform customers of the actions they can take if they disagree with a decision, including how they can make a complaint. The Adjudicator’s Office plays an important role in the resolution of complaints and in building trust in HMRC’s decisions. To demonstrate openness and accountability, HMRC need to be clear on how customers can escalate their complaint for an independent review and offer the opportunity to do so where appropriate. However, this was unusual because HMRC are normally good at signposting customers to us once HMRC’s internal complaint process is complete.

Case Study 2 Decision: Partially Upheld. Business Area: PT Operations

The customer submitted tax returns showing large overpayments of tax. HMRC was unable to process the returns or refund the overpaid tax because the customer submitted his tax returns after the four-year statutory time limit to claim a repayment had passed. At the time this was happening, the customer had an outstanding tax liability of nearly £2,700 which was accruing interest, penalties, and surcharges.

We found that HMRC’s decision that the overpayments could not be repaid was made in line with guidance and legislation. We also found that HMRC’s decision that the customer should pay back the tax owed was correct. However, we partially upheld the complaint because we identified that HMRC did not fully consider the difficult financial circumstances the customer was experiencing.

At Tier 2, the customer explained that he was experiencing significant financial difficulty, had anxiety about losing his employment and had issues with his mental health. The response acknowledged the customer’s circumstances but only considered them against the strict criteria for allowing a late claim for repayment, not against the recovery of the tax owed.

Because of this, we asked HMRC to provide a discretionary decision regarding the debt the customer owed. HMRC’s Debt Management Team said that they could not apply discretion because the debt was with a Debt Collection Agency (DCA), and the customer had not responded to the letters HMRC had sent to him.

Following further enquiries and discussions with HMRC, we recommended that it recall the debt and consider whether this should be collected due to the customer’s severe financial hardship. We also encouraged the customer to re-engage with HMRC to discuss the issues they were experiencing and to enable a decision on recovery to be made.

We awarded £150 redress for poor complaints handling as HMRC acknowledged during our investigation that they were aware of the customer’s difficult financial circumstances but did not take the required actions.

Case Study 3 Decision: Not Upheld. Business Area: Benefits and Credits

The customer’s complaint was about overpayments of tax credits which occurred almost 20 years ago. HMRC told them that they were out of time to dispute the overpayments and that they must pay them back. The customer was 73 years old and told us that they have had seven major operations in the last decade, and cancer treatment in 2008-09.

The continuous demands for the repayment caused the customer and their family a great deal of stress over the years. They asked us to recommend that HMRC write off the overpayments.

The customer received overpayments of tax credits in 2003-04 and 2004-05 amounting to about £4,800 and £1,000 respectively. HMRC issued FANs to the customer on 28 June 2004 and 15 August 2005. The customer had 93 days from the date the FAN was issued to dispute the overpayments. We found no evidence that the customer contacted HMRC within the required timescale which meant that HMRC’s decision that the overpayments remained due and recoverable was correct.

However, HMRC’s Tier 2 investigator recognised the customer’s vulnerability and took the forward-thinking step of liaising with HMRC’s Debt Management Extra Support Team who made the decision that remitting the debt was the appropriate course of action.

We identified this as a great example of HMRC going the extra mile to resolve a complaint, taking account of the circumstances the customer was in, rather than just applying process. We were also pleased that the complaint handler thought really carefully about the consequences of HMRC’s actions, even though technically it had not done anything wrong.

Case Study 4 Decision: Partially Upheld. Individuals and Small Business Compliance

The customer’s complaint was about the way that HMRC conducted an enquiry into a National Minimum Wage underpayment.

The customer said that HMRC did not fully review all the facts of the case, or the evidence provided during their compliance enquiry before deciding that the customer was an apprentice. They said that HMRC missed timescales and deadlines, and they complained that there was no formal route to challenge HMRC’s decision. They considered HMRC’s decision and the remedial action taken unreasonable and requested that HMRC reimburse their legal costs and pay redress for the impact this matter had on them.

We were unable to comment on HMRC’s decision about the customer’s employment status or the lack of a formal route to challenge the decision as this was outside of our remit.

However, we looked at whether HMRC followed their guidance when obtaining and considering the evidence prior to making a decision. We found that following correspondence from the customer, HMRC either acknowledged, questioned, or confirmed that they had reviewed the information and evidence provided. This was in line with their ‘check and challenge’ approach to ensure the information HMRC receive is sufficient and stands up to scrutiny. We also reviewed HMRC’s internal notes which detailed the reasoning behind their decision, as well as the additional information and evidence provided by the customer and the employer and the effect this had on the HMRC’s decision.

The customer told us that HMRC repeatedly missed their self-imposed deadlines and that their complaint responses focussed on meeting generic timescales rather than reflecting their specific experience. We found that HMRC had acknowledged that they had not always met their timescales and had taken this on board as feedback to ensure this did not happen in the future. However, there was no evidence that HMRC had formally apologised in either of their complaint responses which we considered to be poor complaint handling. It is important that complaint responses reflect the circumstances of the complaint the customer has raised.

Most of this complaint was outside of our remit but it does raise an important point about seeing the customer, rather than responding on HMRC’s terms. There was not much HMRC could do in this case, but it should have recognised the feeling behind the complaint. As such we asked HMRC to formally apologise for the level of service provided in relation in this case.

Case Study 5 Decision: Partially Upheld. Business Area: PT Operations

The customer’s complaint was about an underpayment of around £1,100 for the 2022-23 tax year. HMRC accepted it caused the underpayment but said that it could not consider Extra Statutory Concession A19 (ESC A19) because the debt was in Simple Assessment which carries a right of appeal to tribunal.

The customer did not receive a response from HMRC’s Appeals Team and raised concerns about the delay in receiving a decision. They were extremely worried about paying back the tax which was due and told us they were suffering with depression and anxiety, leading to sleepless nights and absence from work.

During our investigation, we pointed out that a decision under ESC A19 is a discretionary one to be made by HMRC and is not a matter for a tribunal to decide. We asked HMRC to consider the concession and provide us with its decision. HMRC agreed to do this.

HMRC considered ESC A19 and decided the tax was due. It accepted that its mistake had caused the underpayment to arise, but that the ‘time test’ condition of the concession was not met. We found HMRC’s decision to be reasonable as they notified the customer of the underpayment “12 months or less after the end of the tax year in which the arrears arose.” This meant that the underpayment remained recoverable.

But we also found that HMRC did not handle the customer’s complaints in accordance with its Charter, namely ‘Getting things right’ which says that HMRC will give its customers “accurate, consistent and clear information” and ‘Being responsive’ which says “we’ll answer your questions and resolve things first time, or as quickly as we can”. HMRC should have explained much sooner why it could not write off the underpayment.

During its complaints process, HMRC apologised for causing the underpayment and awarded financial redress of £120 which we found reasonable. However, we also found that HMRC caused an unreasonable delay in the customer receiving an explanation about why it could not write off the underpayment and it did not properly explain the payment options available when it wrote to the customer in January 2024. For this, we asked HMRC to pay additional redress of £250 to add weight to its apologies.

Case Study 6 Decision: Partially Upheld. Business Area: PT Operations

The customer’s complaint was about an underpayment of £4,000 tax for the 2022-23 tax year. HMRC assured the customer in December 2022 that they had overpaid tax. However, it later accepted that it made a mistake with the tax code, causing an underpayment. The customer told us that being asked to repay the tax was causing stress and worry, and they explained that they care for a child following the death of a close family member.

During the complaints process, HMRC did not consider the application of ESC A19 as it incorrectly concluded that the customer was challenging the information used to calculate the tax due. However, it did apologise for causing the underpayment and offered to pay redress totalling £175 for the worry and distress caused.

We reviewed the customer’s correspondence and found no evidence that they challenged the information used to calculate their tax. As a result of our investigation, HMRC accepted that it was wrong to refer the complaint to its appeals team and that the referral added to a delay in adequately addressing the customer’s complaint.

HMRC told us that it could not write off the underpayment as the ‘time test’ condition of ESC A19 was not met. We found HMRC’s decision reasonable meaning the underpayment remained recoverable. However, we partially upheld the complaint as HMRC did not handle it well. HMRC had the opportunity to provide an ESC A19 decision during the complaints process but did not do so. It also did not answer the customer’s query about what actions it would take to ensure it did not make the same mistake with future customers.

We asked HMRC to write to the customer to apologise for the worry and distress caused by its poor handling of the complaint. We also recommended it pay redress of £200, taking the total awarded to £375.

Case Study 7 Decision: Not Upheld. Business Area: BT Operations

This complaint was about underpaid Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). The customer contacted HMRC because they wanted to pay the shortfall. However, they told us that HMRC refused to tell them how much was owed and it instead advised the customer to work it out for themselves.

The customer was unhappy with HMRC’s response as they were not a tax professional. The customer also told us that they were dealing with difficult personal circumstances.

In May 2023, the customer contacted HMRC and asked whether an auction fee should have been included in their SDLT calculation. After chasing this, the customer received a standard reply which did not address the enquiry or provide any guidance on what to do next.

The customer contacted HMRC again in November 2023. In response, HMRC apologised for the standard reply and confirmed the auction fee should have been included. It also explained that they could not calculate the SDLT owed and directed the customer to its guidance and SDLT calculator to work out the tax due.

The customer felt this response was unempathetic and unhelpful. HMRC responded by providing a direct number to a SDLT technical adviser.

We did not uphold the complaint because HMRC’s guidance confirms that SDLT is a self-assessed tax, meaning that HMRC cannot perform calculations for taxpayers. It says:

‘SDLT is a self-assessed tax operated on a process now, check later basis, with compliance powers and rights of appeal.’

We acknowledged that the customer may have found working out the tax owed stressful. However, we could not say that HMRC had made a mistake by not telling them how much extra tax was owed. We found that although HMRC were unable to perform the SDLT calculation, it supported the customer to do this himself by providing a SDLT calculator and giving him a direct number to a SDLT technical adviser. It also told him where he could find examples in the SDLT manual.

We considered this to be an example of good customer service and a demonstration of HMRC meeting its Charter standards: ‘Making things easy’, ‘Treating you fairly’ and ‘Being aware of your personal situation’.

HMRC - First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive J P Marks

J P Marks

It is a privilege to have joined HMRC as Chief Executive and First Permanent Secretary this year and to work closely with the Adjudicator and his office. I welcome the scrutiny that the Adjudicator brings both to HMRC complaint handling and delivery of the HMRC Charter.

I am pleased that the Adjudicator’s annual report references the HMRC Charter as a measure of what great customer service can and should look like. Our Charter sits at the heart of everything we do, setting out the service and standards of behaviour that customers should expect from us. We strive to uphold our Charter Standards by handling customers’ complaints fairly and by considering their personal circumstances. We want to get things right first time – but when mistakes happen, we also want to resolve issues quickly and remain responsive to customer needs.

The Adjudicator’s annual report notes the challenging start for HMRC in the financial year 2024 to 2025 as we were not able to meet our service standards. This resulted in more complaints around delay, some of which were then escalated to the Adjudicator’s Office. Our service has been stabilising in 2025 which I hope will lead to fewer complaints because HMRC are giving customers an improved experience – customers calling HMRC have been receiving a better service than they were a year ago. Customers are waiting around half the time to speak to an advisor compared to this time last year and their post is also being replied to quicker. I want HMRC to really listen to customers who complain so we can rectify things that go wrong as quickly as possible. We’ve made progress in how we learn from complaints, and we will continue to work collaboratively with the Adjudicator and the Adjudicator’s Office, using their valuable insight from complaints, which helps us to improve day-to-day performance and the overall customer experience.

As noted in the Adjudicator’s annual report, we are making good progress in becoming a digital-first tax and customs organisation. Already, around 76% of our customer interactions are digital and we aim to increase this to at least 90% by 2029 to 2030. We are helping more customers to use our digital services by improving our guidance and highlighting those services through targeted communications campaigns.

We remain committed to supporting customers who cannot fully engage digitally. Whilst we prioritise digital services, we will continue to offer targeted support for customers who are digitally excluded, vulnerable or have complex needs. To support this commitment, we increased the size of our extra support teams during 2024 to 2025, providing extra support to over 150,000 customers. We are making additional investment this year which will ensure more consistent service standards and provide tailored support for customers in vulnerable circumstances. Alongside this investment, our embedded partnership with the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) is helping us to develop an advocacy and partnership model. I am determined to build on our existing partnership with the VCS through development of the HMRC Voluntary and Community Sector 2027 to 2030 programme, which will increase support for our vulnerable customers with extra support needs.

I understand that undergoing a compliance check can be a difficult experience for our customers. We have improved our compliance experience for our customers in line with our Compliance Professional Standards, which set out how we should apply the Charter and Civil Service values in our compliance activity. In April 2025, we launched an interactive compliance guidance tool to openly explain the compliance journey. This helps individuals and businesses better understand compliance checks, offering clear, accessible guidance at every stage. We have also invested in our on-demand support for customers who require additional assistance to navigate their way through a compliance check. Following the government’s extra investment in HMRC in this year’s Spending Review, we are also expanding our capacity to handle compliance cases, recruiting 5,500 new compliance officers with improved tools and training.     

We value the insight from the Adjudicator’s level 3 report on the application of customer circumstances to decision-making, which has been central in shaping our approach to applying discretion. In response to the recommendations, we implemented a series of targeted actions to support complaint handlers in applying discretion more effectively and with greater sensitivity to customer vulnerability.

We recognise there is more for us to do to make our guidance easy for customers to use and understand, which is highlighted in the Adjudicator’s level 3 report on guidance. We want to provide a more joined-up experience for our customers and this year I have appointed Myrtle Lloyd as HMRC’s Chief Customer Officer and brought our customer-focused functions into a single Customer Experience directorate under her. I am committed to HMRC prioritising customer experience, to help customers pay the right tax on time.

HMRC’s formal response to this and the Adjudicator’s level 3 report, is expected to be published in January 2026.

VOA update and case studies

We don’t receive many VOA cases – mainly because the reasons most people might complain have a route of appeal, such as where someone is unhappy with their council tax band. But as discussed above, we have seen in recent years a concerted effort by the VOA to be welcoming of complaints for the learning they provide.

The VOA has spoken to our office extensively as it has improved its approach to complaints and has been willing to listen and learn. We are seeing that in the complaints that come to our office.

Case Study 1 . Decision: Fully Upheld. Business Area: VOA

The customer was unhappy with the apology and redress offered by the VOA after it made a mistake by changing the council tax banding on the customer’s property. The VOA told the customer that they needed to make an appeal to the Tribunal. However, and only once a court date was set, the VOA realised it made the original mistake, so there was no need to go to Tribunal.

In its Tier 2 complaint response, the VOA apologised and awarded £50 redress, which the customer did not believe reflected the impact of their actions.

We found that the VOA provided a poor level of customer service as its error in calculating a change in the size of the customer’s property led to their council tax band increasing from Band F to Band G. We also found that the £50 redress awarded was influenced by the fact that the customer would ultimately receive a refund of the council tax they had overpaid.

The impact of a mistake should be considered in any decision on redress. This meant that whilst the customer would ultimately receive a refund for the excess council tax payments they had made, the VOA should have considered the impact that making higher payments than necessary would have had on the customer both financially and personally. Refunding the money simply put the customer back in the position they would have been had the error not been made by the VOA in the first place.

Furthermore, the VOA should have considered the amount of time it took for the problem to be resolved. It took over a year to acknowledge it had made a mistake. The customer spent that time and more overpaying council tax as a result of the error.

We upheld the customer’s complaint and asked the VOA to pay a further £200 redress in addition to the £50 it previously awarded, making a total of £250.

Case Study 2 Decision: Not Upheld. Business Area: VOA

The customer’s complaint was about the VOA’s handling of an appeal against their property’s Council Tax band. The customer told us that there was an unreasonable delay in the appeal being considered and that when they complained, the VOA did not carry out a proper investigation of their complaint. To resolve the matter, the customer requested a refund of the Council Tax they believed they had overpaid.

On 5 March 2024, the customer contacted the VOA to appeal against the Council Tax banding of their property as they did not agree that it should be in Band E. The VOA replied explaining what evidence would be needed to challenge the banding, which the customer provided on 7 March 2024.

Following this, the customer contacted the VOA on 8 July 2024 to complain about the delay in considering their appeal and submitted a formal complaint on 10 July 2024. The VOA responded on 25 July 2024 apologising for the delay. It explained that due to an increase in referrals, it was taking around six months to complete appeal reviews. It asked the customer to contact them if they had had no contact by 31 August 2024.

The customer remained unhappy and asked for the complaint to be escalated to the next level. The VOA replied on 13 August 2024 and explained that it was unable to look at issues relating to the valuation under its complaints process. The VOA repeated that due to increased demand, it was taking longer than expected to conduct reviews and that it aimed to reply by 31 August 2024.

On 1 and 10 September 2024 the customer contacted the VOA as they had not heard from it about their appeal. The VOA replied on 19 September 2024 and apologised for not replying within the time frame it had set. It advised that a decision on the appeal had been issued on 17 September 2024 confirming that Band E was the correct Council Tax band. The letter explained what to do if the customer wished to challenge the decision.

We explained to the customer that we were unable to consider or comment on the Council Tax banding of their property because our Service Level Agreement with the VOA says that we cannot look at complaints about ‘valuation decisions of Statutory Officers in the VOA.’ As such, we would not be able to recommend that they receive a refund of the Council Tax.

We had however considered the VOA’s handling of their complaint and found that the VOA acknowledged in its complaint reply that it was taking longer to review banding referrals than it would like. It also accepted that it did not meet the deadline it gave and apologised for the delay both before and during its review of the customer’s complaint.

Although the VOA missed its estimated deadlines, we considered the apologies to be sufficient to acknowledge this and did not uphold the complaint.

Sometimes things go wrong and matters customers would like progressed quicker take longer than anyone would like. In those cases, we expect Departments to be proactive and explain what is going on. Largely it did this and it apologised where there were shortcomings in its service.

VOA - Chief Executive Jonathan Russell

Jonathan Russell

The Valuation Office Agency’s work supports local councils with the collection of around £60 billion each year in business rates and Council Tax.  

The Adjudicator’s Office provides a fair and independent complaints service for VOA customers. It acts as an impartial review mechanism and is an important part of our complaints process.

I, and colleagues across the Agency, value the collaborative relationship we have with the Adjudicator’s Office and the constructive feedback they continue to provide. This year, in particular, their advice and guidance around redress has clarified and strengthened our approach to putting things right for our customers.

The Adjudicator has taken time to participate in internal events and share learning and his perspective with caseworkers. This supported understanding of good practice and consistency which align to Parliamentary Ombudsman Complaint Standards.

Looking ahead, the Agency’s functions will move into HMRC by April 2026. The Adjudicator’s understanding of our business and working practices will be invaluable as we make that transition.

I know our shared commitment to service improvement will continue through this change, supported by a continued open and professional relationship.

Home Office update and case studies

As we discussed above, the work we do on the WCS is incredibly important. Not just the individual reviews that we undertake, but also, hopefully, by providing some reassurance to a group who have been treated poorly, in many cases for years, that their concerns are being taken seriously.

We recently undertook a consolidation process to understand the impact our work has had on claimants. We don’t make decisions on complaints as we do with HMRC and VOA casework; we review the decision the Home Office has made. Since we began reviewing claims, more than £550,000 more in awards has been paid to claimants after we had conducted our review and asked the Home Office to reconsider its decision. And we regularly provide insight to the Home Office to help it improve the scheme. For example, we have asked the Home Office to consider a trauma-informed approach to claims, recognising that re-visiting the past can be significantly painful for claimants.

The Windrush generation also need a strong voice from the Ombudsman to ensure the scheme is as good as it can be. During the reporting year, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) published a ‘spotlight’ report, reflecting its thoughts on the scheme. We featured in a small number of cases. Regrettably, we were not informed about the report in advance of publication, meaning we were unable to speak to the PHSO to help it land a more impactful and insightful publication. We were also very concerned that some of the cases were misrepresented. We have since received assurances from PHSO that it will engage with us better in the future on this and our casework generally.

Case Study 1 – Case returned to the Home Office

The customer requested a review of the Home Office’s decision under the Impact on Life category of the WCS. He had initially been awarded £10,000.  

The customer made his claim to the WCS as the ‘Close Family Member’ of his sister. Under this type of claim, the Home Office can make an award for detrimental impacts experienced because the customer was impacted by his sister’s (the qualifying Primary Claimant’s) inability to demonstrate her lawful status in the UK.  

The customer told the Home Office about the impacts he experienced when his sister was asked to attend an interview with the Home Office about her immigration status and the need to obtain a work permit. The customer was aged 6 or 7 at that time, and he described the significant and long-lasting impact of his fears that his sister would be asked to leave the UK.   

In assessing the level of award, the Home Office had accepted a loss period of approximately two years when the customer was aged between 6 and 8. This was on the basis that his sister’s lawful status was resolved when he was aged 8, marking the end of the loss period.   

The customer told us he was dissatisfied with the Home Office’s decision, because he experienced an impact extending for decades beyond the age of 6 or 7.   

We were concerned that the Home Office had misdirected itself, because its decision was informed by a belief that a Close Family Member claimant cannot or should not receive an award for Impact on Life at a higher level than that awarded to the qualifying Primary Claimant. The Home Office had also concluded that the detriment to the customer ended when his sister’s period of loss ended, which meant it did not explore the information provided by the customer that the detriment had continued beyond that point.   

It is reasonable to conclude that there will be situations when an individual continues to experience impacts after the end of the period of loss. The Home Office’s approach was not supported by the caseworker guidance which says: “You should take account of all relevant circumstances and available information and evidence and pay particular regard to the severity and duration of detrimental impacts, adopting a ‘balance of probabilities’ approach.”   

Based on our concerns, we asked the Home Office to review its decision again, a process that remains ongoing.  

Our role is to ensure that the Home Office makes decisions which are reasonable and consistent with the WCS rules and caseworker guidance. Where we find that the Home Office has not considered additional factors specified in the guidance, we will ask it to look again.

Case Study 2 – Review not upheld

The customer made a claim to the WCS under the categories of Loss of access to employment, Denial of access to housing services, Denial of access to banking services and Impact on life. The Home Office decided it was unable to offer an award.  

The customer was born in Jamaica in 1938 and came to the UK in 1961. She applied to register as a British citizen in 1987, and her application was granted in 1988.  

When she made her claim to the WCS, she described her difficulties obtaining work and accommodation from when she first arrived in the UK in 1961 until 1968. She described living in cramped and unsuitable accommodation, and that she experienced financial hardship and mental anxiety.  

The Home Office had explained to the customer that the WCS is designed to compensate individuals who have suffered loss in connection with being unable to demonstrate their lawful status in the UK. It explained that the WCS takes its definition of lawful status from the terms of the Immigration Act 1971, which came into force on 1 January 1973. This means that lawful status, for the purposes of the WCS, did not exist before 1 January 1973. It follows that experiences before that date cannot have been caused by an inability to demonstrate lawful status, so they fall outside the scope of the WCS. On that basis, the Home Office decided it was unable to make an award for the customer’s experiences between 1961 and 1968.  

We did not find any grounds to ask the Home Office to review its decision, which was reasonable and consistent with the WCS rules and caseworker guidance.  

We frequently see cases of this type, where claimants describe their experiences before the Immigration Act 1971 came into force on 1 January 1973. We acknowledge these experiences, and that the impact of them was often very significant. However, the design of the WCS does not allow the Home Office to compensate for them. We mentioned in our last annual report that it is important for the Home Office to be clear about what the WCS can and cannot do. This case was a good example of the Home Office providing a clear explanation of the basis for its decision.

Case Study 3 – Case returned to the Home Office

The Customer made a claim to the WCS as the ‘Close Family Member’ of her ex-partner, Mr A. The Home Office considered the claim under the categories of Impact on life, Living costs and Discretionary. It made a £20,000 award to the customer under Impact on life. The customer asked us to review the Home Office’s decision under all three categories.    

The customer told the Home Office that Mr A had made multiple applications to the Home Office for Indefinite Leave to Remain since the late 1990s, but these were refused. In 2006, Mr A lost his job. The customer said that, due to his inability to demonstrate his lawful status, Mr A was unable to get another job.   

The customer said she was left as sole provider for the family and accrued substantial debt. She described that Mr A’s inability to demonstrate lawful status had a significant impact on his physical and mental health, leading to problems which resulted in the breakdown of their relationship. She said that the situation had a significant impact on her own mental health.   

The Home Office decided it was unable to link the family’s financial problems to an inability by Mr A to demonstrate his lawful status. It used its decision on Mr A’s primary claim to inform its decision to make no award for the financial impacts. However, it accepted that Mr A’s inability to resolve his status issues caused the customer worry and distress and impacted their relationship. It made an award at level 2 (£20,000) for these impacts.   

At the internal (Tier 1) review stage, the customer told the Home Office she had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of the stress and pressure which Mr A’s status issues placed on her, and on her relationship with Mr A and other family members. She said she was receiving treatment, and she provided the Home Office with consent to access her medical records. 

We found that it was reasonable for the Home Office to use its decision on Mr A’s primary claim to inform its assessment of Customer M’s claim. We did not ask it to reconsider its decision that it could not make an award for the financial impacts described by the customer.  

However, we looked at the Home Office’s decision to make a level 2 (£20,000) award for Impact on life. Within the descriptions set out in the WCS rules, evidence that a claimant required medical treatment is one of the key differences between a level 2 and a level 3 award. We found no evidence that the Home Office attempted to contact the customer’s GP for access to her medical records. This was an available and proportionate route of investigation which, if followed, may have helped the Home Office to fully understand the impact of Mr A’s status issues on the customer’s mental health. On that basis, we were not satisfied that its assessment of the customer’s claim was consistent with the WCS rules and casework guidance, and we asked it to reconsider its decision.  

The Home Office accepted our recommendation and obtained Customer M’s medical records. After reconsideration of its decision, it offered a level 3 award (£40,000).    

The casework guidance makes clear that the Home Office wants claimants to receive the maximum compensation to which they are entitled under the WCS. In making its assessment, we would expect the Home Office to pursue available and proportionate routes of investigation which may help it to establish the full extent of the impacts experienced by a claimant.

Case Study 4 – Case returned to the Home Office

The customer made a claim to the WCS as the ‘Close Family Member’ of his late father. The Home Office decided it was unable to offer an award. The customer asked for a review of that decision.  

When he made his claim, the customer described how his early life was adversely affected by his late father’s inability to demonstrate his lawful status. 

The customer’s representative told us that the Home Office had initially refused to make awards to his siblings, but it changed its decision and did so following telephone calls with them. However, the customer’s memory and communication had been affected by treatment for a serious medical condition (of which evidence was provided) and his representative told us that this had affected his ability to provide information when the Home Office telephoned him. The customer considered he was penalised because he was not in a fit state to respond adequately during the call. He wanted the Home Office to award him compensation, because he had suffered the same impacts as his siblings.   

We listened to the recording of the call which the Home Office made to the customer as part of its assessment of his claim. He explained that he had received medical treatment which was impacting his brain function. He also suggested that the Home Office might speak to his siblings for more information.  

The WCS caseworker guidance requires the Home Office to consider each claim on its own facts. The Home Office had decided that, for this reason, it could not take information about his siblings’ claims into account when assessing the customer’s claim.  

The caseworker guidance also says:  

‘You should take a holistic view of the claim and use all the information and evidence you have available to you.’ 

The customer explained his difficulty in providing information to support his claim. In those circumstances, we found it would have been reasonable and consistent with the caseworker guidance for the Home Office to consider whether it could use or obtain information from his siblings to support his claim. Had it done so, it may have found evidence in support of the impact on the customer which would meet the threshold for an award. We asked the Home Office to consider this issue.  

On reconsideration, the Home Office decided, on the balance of probabilities that the customer experienced impacts meeting the description for an award at level 1 (£10,000).  

It is not uncommon for claimants to challenge the Home Office’s decisions for a lack of parity between the awards made to members of the same family. 

We re-emphasised to the Home Office, based on this case, that it needed to take account of all avenues of enquiry, especially where there is an obvious vulnerability. And whilst ‘each case on its own merits’ is generally the starting point, the reality is that cases do cross-over and what is learnt on one may be of assistance on another. The Home Office often demonstrates tenacity and a desire to apply the spirit of the rules and guidance in cases, but in this one, it should have gone further.

Home Office - Second Permanent (Under) Secretary Simon Ridley

Simon Ridley

In 2025, we reaffirmed our commitment to delivering the Windrush Compensation Scheme in a way that is fair, compassionate, and responsive.

We recognise the profound significance of our work not only in providing financial redress, but in helping to restore dignity and rebuild trust with those who have been affected.

Over the past year, we have introduced a new single caseworker process, which has allowed us to process claims more efficiently, reduce waiting times, and to ensure individuals receive the support they are entitled to without unnecessary delay.

At the same time, we recognise that some claimants have experienced prolonged waits for decisions and resolving this remains a key priority. We are committed to making timely decisions while maintaining the highest standards of fairness and accuracy.

We understand the emotional impact that revisiting past experiences can have. For many, submitting a claim involves reliving painful memories and confronting long-standing trauma. In response, we are exploring trauma-informed approaches that recognise the psychological effects of injustice and aim to provide a more empathetic and supportive experience.

We are committed to handling every case with sensitivity, respect, and care as each claim reflects a personal story of hardship, resilience, and injustice. We work diligently to ensure that every individual feels heard, valued, and supported throughout their journey with the scheme.

We have also taken steps to improve transparency around what the Scheme can and cannot compensate for. While the Scheme does not compensate for broader societal injustices such as racism, we remain committed to assessing every eligible claim fairly, and to providing the maximum compensation available in accordance with the Scheme’s rules.

Feedback from the Adjudicator’s Office has been instrumental in driving improvements. Where concerns have been raised whether regarding the interpretation of guidance or assessment of evidence, we have responded by reviewing decisions and making appropriate adjustments, including increasing awards, where justified.

We welcome this scrutiny which is a key element our commitment to continuous improvement. The Adjudicator’s insights have helped us refine and improve our processes.

We have made significant progress in 2025 but recognise that there is still more to do. We will continue to invest in our people, systems, and processes to ensure the Scheme delivers justice with integrity, compassion, and respect.

Update on progress of Business Plan objectives

Last year we published our Business Plan for 2024 - 2027 which set out our proposed activities for the next three years. We structured the Business Plan around the four new high-level objectives in our updated vision:

1. An efficient customer-focused complaint handling service,
2. High-quality, fair decisions,
3. Insight which drives action to improve services for customers,
4. Making the Adjudicator’s Office a great place to work and support our people to deliver our vision.

We have set out below our organisational achievements over the last year against the objectives set out in last year’s Business Plan.

1: An efficient customer-focused complaint handling service

2024-25 has seen a significant increase in our workload across both our key areas of work. Windrush Compensation Scheme cases increased to 453 this year from 137 last year. We have worked closely with the Home Office to increase our resource on these cases.

HMRC and VOA complaints, which have progressed to a full investigation, increased by 21%, from 1100 in 2023-24 to 1335 this year.

Our performance against our four-month service standard remained at over 75% of cases across the year. It has however meant a higher number of cases on hand at the end of the year which we will need to tackle in the 2025-26 financial year.

We have carried out an initial benchmarking activity against the UK Central Government Complaint Standards and identified key areas of focus to build on our maturity level throughout our three -year business plan.

We continue to invest resources into digital to further improve our customer service and efficiency. We introduced automated robotic system which automatically processes complaints directly into our complaint handling database after customers submit them. It went live, ahead of schedule, in February 2025.

2: High quality fair decisions

This year we introduced our Investigation Skills Enhancement Programme (ISEP), which ran from September 2024 to March 2025 and contained five modules designed to upskill our investigators in key areas needed to carry out their role. The programme was attended by both our investigators and their managers, and we delivered over 900 hours of learning over the seven months of the programme.

We have also published our quality standards on Gov.UK giving greater transparency to our customers on what they can expect from us and updated our standards and expectations for our complaints investigators and operational managers to provide greater accountability and clarity.

Our investigators sign off certain lower risk cases under Delegated Authority from the Adjudicator. This year we have increased the number of investigators who have achieved this and have updated our Delegated Authority strategy with clearer guidance to help as many of our people as possible achieve this status.  

We have enhanced our existing Quality Assurance process to provide quarterly feedback to  investigators. It is also used by line managers to support individual development and learning. The Quality and Learning Lead reports on qualitative performance at organisational level through a quarterly report. This report is also used to communicate organisational learning themes which inform our learning programme.

3: Insight which drives action to improve services for customers

In recognition of the importance of the insight and learning we provide to our stakeholders we have created a new role, the Insight and Technical Learning Lead. This role sits within our Senior Leadership Team and is responsible for the delivery of insight and reporting, capturing and sharing learning in a timely and engaging way. This role also has responsibility for leading on our engagement work with our Departmental stakeholders, to help improve customer service across HMRC, VOA and the WCS.

We have continued to play active roles in, and build beneficial relationships with, representative bodies and similar schemes to our own such as the Ombudsman Association, the Cross Governments Complaints Forum, the Institute of Customer Service, the Inspector General of Taxation and Taxation Office in Australia and the DWP Independent Complaints Examiner, all of which help us to improve services for our customers and for customers across the Ombudsman sector. 

We published our Level 3 report on the application of customer circumstances to decision making in September 2024. Our findings highlighted that discretion is a key tool in resolving complaints and based on this, we recommended that HMRC review a sample of complaints to identify whether the use of discretion based on individual customer circumstances would have resolved the complaint sooner. We also recommended additional training and support for HMRC staff on the use of discretion. 

HMRC reviewed 100 complaints to assess where the use of discretion would have been appropriate and undertook a series of actions aimed at making improvements. This included identifying ways to support complaint handlers to improve the awareness of customer vulnerability, HMRC running bespoke workshops on the application of discretion, and improvements to their guidance along with tailored learning products. 

This year, we also raised concerns over HMRC’s guidance in relation to individual claims for the repayment of tax made through an agent or third party. We highlighted that we were seeing a significant number of complaints about this issue, with customers stating that they had not authorised the agent to make a claim on their behalf. 

Our investigations identified that the security checks being undertaken by HMRC prior to the claims being paid were not robust enough to effectively protect the customer and HMRC from potentially fraudulent claims.  

We have met regularly with HMRC to discuss the issue further and assess the steps they have taken in response to our feedback to improve services for customers. HMRC have made changes to their guidance and now require customers to provide evidence prior to a repayment being made. We acknowledge that the actions that HMRC have taken in response to our insight, including the strengthening of their guidance are having a positive impact, as the number of these types of complaint have reduced significantly.

We have also recently completed a second Level 3 report, this time on HMRC’s guidance. In this we identify a number of key themes:

• Guidance is not always clear / easy to follow
• Guidance is not easy to find or is not appropriately linked
• Guidance does not always reflect the legislation
• Guidance can be weighted against the customer

In addition to this we also found instances where HMRC have not responded quickly enough to customer feedback on guidance. A copy of our Level 3 report on guidance is attached to this report.

4: Making the Adjudicator’s Office a great place to work and support our people to deliver our vision

We created a new ‘People Plan’ to support delivery of our ambition to make the office a great place to work, informed by the feedback our colleagues provided in the 2024 Civil Service People Survey.

Our analysis of the People Survey results identified areas for us to focus on and included Learning and Development, Leadership and Managing Change as well as improvements in how our people can make the most of their role and teams.  

Based on the feedback our people have given, we have expanded our Learning and Development offer that forms part of our People Plan, including running panels to offer bespoke feedback to everyone in the office.

Our all office ‘Away Day’ earlier this year focused on how we as an office can improve the way we lead on and experience change and support the development of our people and our organisation in order to serve our customers and stakeholders in the most effective way possible.

We have initiated several new feedback channels, including a monthly anonymous poll and regular listening sessions with senior leaders, which give our people the chance to have their say on all aspects of working at the Adjudicator’s Office. This feedback helps us to refine our plans for making the Adjudicator’s Office a great place to work.

Complaints about our service

We always welcome feedback from customers as it helps us to review and improve our processes and the service we offer our customers.    

We apply the same impartial and professional approach when investigating complaints about our office as we do for complaints about HMRC/VOA and the Home Office.

Our GOV.UK website tells our customers how to raise concerns about our service, through our new electronic complaints form or by writing to us. During the period April 2024 to March 2025, we received 25 complaints about the level of service we provided.

The main areas of complaint related to customers unable to open our emails sent from the encrypted mailbox and delays. We are currently reviewing both these areas and working hard to improve the service we deliver.

We always consider feedback and where wider lessons are raised; we use these opportunities to improve our customer service.

Queries about Adjudicator’s Office recommendations

The Adjudicator’s Office does not reconsider cases because the customer does not agree with our decisions. However, we can decide to provide a further response to clarify our decisions or recommendations and will address areas if we have made an error during our investigation. All our recommendation letters explain the process for referring a case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman if the customer remains dissatisfied with our handling of their complaint.

Statutory reporting requirements

Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests

As a public authority we must publish certain information about our activities and members of the public can request information held by a public authority. During April 2024 to March 2025, we received 5 Freedom of Information requests.

Subject Access Requests (SAR)

Under Article 15 of the UK General Data Protection Requirement (GDPR), we must provide customers with any personal data we hold if they request it. During the period April 2024 to March 2025, we received 18 Subject Access Requests.

Funding for the financial year

HMRC customers form the largest group of users of the Adjudicator’s services. The Service Level Agreement between HMRC and the Adjudicator ensures staff, accommodation, equipment, and materials are supplied to enable him to provide an independent review of unresolved complaints. A funding agreement is in place between the Adjudicator’s Office and the Home Office to provide resources for the Windrush Compensation Scheme.

The Adjudicator is an independent appointment agreed by the organisations over which he adjudicates.

The Adjudicator’s salary is set by reference to the Civil Service SCS2 pay scale. 

Our delegated budget from HMRC for 2024 to 2025 was £2.925m and expenditure from the same period £2.869m.

How we are organised

The Adjudicator

Mike McMahon

Head of Office

Richard Fowler

Deputy Head of Office

Sarah Doherty

Head of Operations

Clare Kirby

Head of Corporate Services

Mandy Fields

Insight and Technical Learning Lead

Andy Fowler

How to contact us

Online

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/the-adjudicator-s-office

Post   

The Adjudicator’s Office
PO Box 11222
Nottingham
NG2 9AD

Phone

Telephone: 0300 057 1111 Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Closed weekends and bank holidays.

Please note that we are only able to help with complaints about HMRC and the VOA, and complaints and reviews for the Home Office’s Windrush Compensation Scheme.

1. 22 case adjustment due to 25 cases being identified as premature and deducted from the total and 3 additional cases recorded after 31 March ↩

2. 5 case adjustment due to 7 cases being identified as premature and deducted from the total and 2 additional cases recorded after 31 March ↩

3. includes investigation, withdrawn, out of remit and department reconsidered ↩