Lin Homer, HMRC's chief executive, has announced that an extra 1,000 staff are to be deployed at the Revenue's call centres in a bid to achieve its target of answering 90% of all calls.
In 2010/11 only 48% of calls were answered but improvements the following year saw the success rate increase to 74% in 2011/12. In June of this year, however, the Treasury revealed that a quarter of calls made to the Revenue's helpline go unanswered with many losing patience after being made to wait for an average of 5 minutes, 45 seconds.
Following consultation with the Joint Initiative on HMRC Service Delivery, which involves professional bodies and tax charities, Ms Homer will invest £9 million this year and up to £25 million in 2013/14 in an attempt to have HMRC meet the call centre industry standard two years earlier than the department promised the Treasury Select Committee.
According to Lin Homer, HMRC's contact centres receive around 60 million phone calls a year and she stressed the importance of taxpayers having their calls answered and in a reasonable time.
It is one thing however in recruiting additional staff to deal with the volume of calls but will these operatives possess the necessary tax knowledge to handle calls efficiently? Feedback given to HMRC suggests that the quality of advice given to those lucky enough to speak to an operative has been good. The writer begs to differ and hopes that sufficient investment will be made in good quality training.
Quality of service is an issue that is also affecting HMRC staff morale which, according to a report from the vice president of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), Nita Clarke, is already low. Clarke was commissioned to independently challenge both HMRC's top executives and the trade unions on engagement and trust issues. Through a staff survey, which only had a 52% take up, she discovered that:
- Many employees did not feel valued, respected or listened to and only 18% would recommend HMRC as a great place to work.
- 20% of staff wanted to leave the department as soon as possible or within the next 12 months.
- Only 34% felt that they were involved in decisions affecting their work, with around 18% believing that they had the opportunity to contribute their opinions in the pre-decision making process.
- 45% felt that they had a choice in deciding how to do their work, which is 26 points below the civil service average; and
- Only 20% felt HMRC inspired them to perform to the best in their job.
Trade unions may consider this recent announcement as a part victory in their fight against HMRC staff cutbacks. The Public and Commercial Services Union, the largest civil service trade union, has welcomed the fact that the department has recognised the need for investment and that the additional 1,000 people will be full time Revenue employees rather than private contractors. The use of two private contractors had been one of the reasons for strike action in January and June of this year.
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