Memorandum from The Chartered Institute
of Taxation Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG)
HANDLING TELEPHONE ENQUIRIES TO HMRC:
SUMMARY AND
LIST OF
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The Report by the NAO has identified the
main failings of the telephone service offered by HMRC to the
public:
— 43% of calls were not answered;
— 6.8 million callers did not receive advice
which met internal accuracy standards; and
— The staff utilisation rate was only 38%.
2. In this submission we draw the attention
of the Committee to simple things HMRC could do, at no or negligible
expense, to make the experience of telephoning HMRC less costly
and frustrating for the customer.
The customer needs to know whom to phone to deal
with their problem.
3. There is an alphabetical list of 50 helplines
on a page on the HMRC website. This page needs to be re-designed
around the priority needs of customers as identified in the NAO
Report (p 15, fig 1).
The customer needs to know how to find the number
4. Most HMRC factsheets and forms refer customers
to their "local tax office", even though most customers
no longer have a "local tax office" and the nearest
enquiry centre cannot be telephoned directly (a call-back option
is offered).
5. The list of HMRC helplines does not state
what issues are dealt with by each. So if a Self Assessment taxpayer
rang the Self Assessment helpline to ask for time to pay a bill,
they would be directed to ring the Self Assessment payment helpline
instead—but only after having gone through all the options
and waited to speak to the operator. This information needs to
be clearly identified in all appropriate places.
The cost of calling HMRC falls disproportionately
on people with low incomes
6. HMRC's policy of using 0845 numbers makes
calling the Department particularly expensive for users of pay-as-you-go
mobile phones. Those who rely on such phones—predominantly
those on the lowest incomes—are consequently the most disadvantaged
by HMRC's policy.
7. By contrast, the DWP have introduced 0800
helpline numbers and ensure that mobile phone users get free calls
too.
8. HMRC do sometimes use call-back systems,
yet people are often refused a call back even though the credit
on their mobile phone has been exhausted by making contact in
the first place.
9. HMRC should learn from a body such as Bristol
City Council which offers the option of waiting in a queue or
receiving an automatic call-back within a stated time.
10. If all lines are busy, the message should
be given out at the start of the call. At present, callers' costs
are increased by having to listen to all recorded messages and
call options before they are either put on hold for an operator,
or told that the lines are busy.
The "contact us" page on HMRC's website
11. If you follow directions to "contact
us" on HMRC's website, you will normally be given a variety
of options, all of which take time to follow up, but all lead
ultimately to the centralised Contact Centre Service. This is
a circuitous route which is unnecessarily frustrating for the
customer.
HMRC should give the Contact Centre Service number
in the first place.
12. If however your call is about tax credits
or child benefit, you are directed straight away to the appropriate
helpline and even, for child benefit, an email facility.
Inaccurate information at point of delivery
13. The NAO Report confirms that 11% of calls
may result in the caller being given inaccurate advice. But our
mystery shopping shows that error levels are almost certainly
much higher in the more difficult areas of advice, such as childcare
or disability in tax credits or age allowances or pension commutation
for pensioners.
14. We recommend that HMRC separate out those
difficult questions and route them to specialist staff as soon
as the call is received.
15. We also recommend that a new system of call
guidance and retrieval is trialled.
1. ABOUT THE
LOW INCOMES
TAX REFORM
GROUP (LITRG)
1.1 LITRG is an initiative of the Chartered
Institute of Taxation (CIOT) to give a voice to the unrepresented.
Since 1998 LITRG has been working to improve the policy and processes
of the tax, tax credits and associated welfare systems for the
benefit of those on low incomes.
1.2 The CIOT is a charity and the leading professional
body in the United Kingdom concerned solely with taxation. The
CIOT's primary purpose is to promote education and study of the
administration and practice of taxation. One of the key aims is
to achieve a better, more efficient, tax system for all affected
by it—taxpayers, advisers and the authorities.
2. THE NAO REPORT
2.1 The NAO Report analyses the difficulties
that HMRC face in operating their telephone systems at acceptable
levels for the general public. The Report clearly sets out the
deficiencies in stark terms:
— 43% of calls were not answered;
— 6.8 million callers did not receive advice
which met internal accuracy standards; and
— the staff utilisation rate was only 38%.
2.2 What perhaps the Report cannot do is to
translate some of the frustration, cost and feelings of powerlessness
which these failures visit upon the most vulnerable of HMRC's
customers.
2.3 Ever since the formation of LITRG we have
pressed for better telephone services and indeed previous NAO
reports have highlighted the same issues. There is always a promise
of better things tomorrow.
2.4 Undoubtedly the Committee's examination
of the senior HMRC officials who "own" the Contact Centres
will focus, in the limited time available, upon the remedial action
to be taken at a strategic level. However, we want to draw the
attention of the PAC to simple things with no (or negligible)
cost implications that should be done to make people's lives easier,
but due to structural barriers within HMRC seem impossible to
achieve. In our view this arises for two reasons:
— lack of a complete view of the customer
perspective, and
— lack of ownership of a problem which
crosses two or more HMRC "organisational silos".
3. LITRG'S "SIMPLE
THINGS LIST"
Who do I phone?
3.1 The vulnerable customer does not recognise
the silos of HMRC (tax credits, PAYE, Self Assessment, Child Trust
Fund, National Insurance etc.) and when they have an issue, they
need to know who to speak to.
It took the voluntary sector nearly six years
to persuade tax credits officials involved in tax credit overpayment
disputes to put a name and telephone number on letters, so that
customers could avoid making fruitless calls to the Contact Centre
Helpline.
3.2 HMRC themselves estimate they have 139 "customer
facing" 0845 numbers. Nearly half relate to income tax alone.
This is not necessarily a bad thing if it means the people answering
the phone are more expert about what people are calling to discuss.
3.3 But the signposting and the explanations,
whether on forms, leaflets or the web, are inconsistent, vague
and generally very poor. This in itself creates avoidable traffic
as people go from pillar to post.
3.4 Why have a confusing alphabetical listing
of around 50 Helplines on the HMRC website: http://tiny.cc/zwthf
? The page needs to be designed around the priority needs of customers
contacting HMRC by phone, which is clearly identified in the NAO
Report (Figure 1 on page 15). The listing also needs to show the
opening hours of the various Helplines, which vary enormously.
3.5 Many HMRC communications do not refer to
the Helplines, they just refer to the HMRC website and leave the
customer to navigate unaided to the appropriate Helpline.
How do I find the number?
3.6 Most HMRC factsheets, forms etc suggest
that customers should `contact your local tax office' by telephone,
using the Phone Book. This is becoming impossible, because individuals
no longer have a "local tax office" and progressively
fewer people have a Phone Book with the growth of mobile phones.
3.7 When you have found the HMRC page it will
typically list a range of Helplines by name and say when they
are open, but will not indicate what types of issues are covered
by each. This makes the customer journey needlessly long. For
example, you might assume that you should ring the Self Assessment
helpline to ask about Self Assessment. However, if you telephone
that number to arrange extra time to pay your Self Assessment
bill, you will not know it is the wrong number until you have
listened to five options and waited to speak to an operator. You
will then be directed to the Self Assessment payment helpline
and as there is no facility available for the advisor to transfer
the call, you must go through the whole process again.
3.8 Additionally, although the Phone Book lists
a number against each office, if you ring the number of the office
nearest to you, you will not be put through to that office, nor
are you given an option to speak to the nearest Enquiry Centre.
If you persist you will be told to provide your details, including
a call-back telephone number. This is needed so that the local
Enquiry Centre can ring you, at their convenience, to arrange
an appointment. You will be advised not to visit the Enquiry Centre
unannounced. Is it any wonder the footfall in Enquiry Centres
has dropped?
3.9 Furthermore, not one typetalk/textphone
number is listed in these Phone Book pages, even though the standard
HMRC dedicated page carries the message "Positive about disabled
people". HMRC have 14 dedicated numbers for deaf or hearing/speech
impaired customers, none of which are mentioned.
Cost of calls
3.10 You may note that the only 0800 numbers
on the Phone Book page are for when you want to inform on your
neighbours and friends.
3.11 Unfortunately, HMRC have not taken the
initiative for their low income customers, as have the Department
for Work & Pensions, not only to introduce 0800 Helpline numbers
but also to ensure that mobile phones users get free calls. A
recent CAB survey showed that of 82 clients questioned, 56 had
been unable at some point to call Government because they had
no money on their mobile phone.[12]
3.12 There are now more mobile phones than people
in the UK.[13]
The poorest people are the most likely to rely exclusively on
their mobile phone with restricted contracts such as Pay as You
Go, and are therefore the most disadvantaged by the current HMRC
policy of using 0845 numbers.
3.13 With no geographical number option provided
by HMRC alongside the 0845 number option, the caller is unable
to choose the most cost effective route for themselves. A report[14]
from the Social Security Advisory Committee found that a 45 minute
call to an 0845 number can cost as much as £18 (equivalent
to one-third of someone's weekly income if they are on Income
Support).
3.14 Many will incur charges simply to listen
to a range of recorded messages and call options, and only when
they have chosen a call option will they be advised whether the
lines are engaged, whether they need to call back or whether they
are in a queue of an indefinite length. Towards the busiest peaks,
the HMRC automated system will tell you that everyone is very
busy and will then cut you off.
3.15 Without a clear HMRC call-back policy customers
will often be refused such a call-back, even though the little
credit they may have had on their mobile telephone has been exhausted
in establishing contact in the first place.
3.16 We recommend HMRC consider an innovative
use of call back facilities, such as set by Bristol City Council
(and the Australian tax authorities), which offers the option
of waiting on the line in a queue or receiving an automatic call
back in a stated time. This call back is free of charge, and the
caller can ask to be rung back on another day or time convenient
to them.
One adviser in TaxHelp for Older People,[15]
the advice charity for low income pensioners, recorded 65 instances
of pensioners calling her in January 2010 solely because they
could not get through on the telephone to the HMRC Contact Centres.
When HMRC tell me to visit www.hmrc.gov.uk what
do I find?
3.17 It is likely that if you are reading an
HMRC publication or holding on the phone you will be directed
to the HMRC website at www.hmrc.gov.uk. There is undoubtedly good
material now on HMRC's website. Your challenge is to find it.
3.18 If you want to communicate with HMRC you
are directed from most pages on their website to "Contact
Us". The NAO report shows that most contact by far comes
from tax credits claimants and PAYE/Self Assessment payers. But
HMRC treats different groups very differently under the Contact
Us section. If you want to find how to contact HMRC on tax credits
or child benefit you are directed to appropriate telephone numbers
and even an email facility (for child benefit).
3.19 However, if you are a pensioner with a
PAYE question, you are given a complex list of options, the first
two being Bereavement and the Deceased Estates Helpline. If you
progress further to Income Tax Enquiries you are sent, eventually,
to a "find your tax office" page. You will then spend
some considerable time putting in postcodes or your pension payer's
reference; if you succeed you will be given a number to ring.
3.20 The irony is that this journey through
the pages is totally unnecessary. All the pensioner needs to be
told at the outset is to ring 0845 3000 627. The miscellany of
telephone numbers lead to the same place, the centralised Contact
Centre service. HMRC should give the Contact Centre Service number
in the first place.
3.21 There are many similar experiences scattered
through the HMRC website, but they go unnoticed and untreated
because it seems that no-one has the responsibility to follow
the customer journey.
Accuracy of information at point of delivery
3.22 The tax charities (LITRG, TaxAid and TaxHelp
for Older People) see the fall-out which occurs from inaccurate
information given by the Contact Centre Helplines. Sometimes,
the effect on a family can be devastating, particularly through
receiving inaccurate tax credit information.
3.23 The NAO report confirms that 11 out of
every 100 calls made may result in the caller being given inaccurate
advice. We believe that the levels of error are almost certainly
much higher in the more difficult areas of advice, for example,
childcare or disability in tax credits or age allowances or pension
commutation for pensioners.
LITRG's mystery shopping of Contact Centres in
relation to specific areas of advice consistently shows mistakes
well above 11%, sometimes as high as 80%.
3.24 This places the customer in an exceptionally
vulnerable position, especially as HMRC will often not accept
the taxpayer's word that they have received wrong advice, requiring
the taxpayer to produce evidence. The position for tax credit
claimants is somewhat better, as the normal practice is to make
a recording of all telephone calls, but this only helps with the
most confident of HMRC's customers who are prepared to challenge
authority.
3.25 We would need a full report to elaborate
upon our recommendations for improving HMRC accuracy, but one
clear move we would make is to separate out the difficult questions
and escalate them to specialist staff as soon as they arrive at
the Contact Centre. Tax and tax credits are often complex and
need experienced professionals to give accurate and comprehensive
advice.
3.26 Retrieving the evidence of the advice the
individual receives in a call to HMRC is dependent upon the subject
matter of the call. Not all calls are recorded. In addition, where
calls are recorded and the evidence needs to be retrieved, the
procedures are cumbersome. We recommend that the guidance given
to callers be reviewed and that alternative systems of information
recording be piloted for the benefit of both HMRC and the customer.
16 February 2010
12 Hungup report Leeds CAB. Back
13
Research report by OFCOM: The consumer experience 2008 (25 November
2008). Back
14
SSAC (occasional paper no 3): Telephony in DWP and its agencies:
call costs and equality of access. Back
15
Tax Volunteers, registered charity no 1102276, www.taxvol.org.uk Back
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