Research and analysis

Summary of the evaluation of changes to how HMRC supports Self Assessment customers in the 2023 to 2024 tax year

Published 19 March 2024

Context

In the 2023 to 2024 tax year, HMRC trialled changes to how it supports Self Assessment (SA) customers, directing more of them to self-serve online because it is quicker and easier for them. This allows HMRC to focus more  phone support on those with more complex queries and those who are vulnerable. 

On 8 June 2023, HMRC announced it was trialling a seasonal model for the SA helpline, with the line closing for 3 months over the summer. Customers were directed to HMRC’s online services to be supported by online guidance, a digital assistant and by HMRC webchat advisers.  

On 7 December 2023, HMRC announced further changes to the SA helpline and the Agent Dedicated Line (ADL). During the SA peak filing period (11 December to 31 January 2024), although the helplines remained open, HMRC prioritised calls about filing returns, making payments, and queries about repayments. All other non-priority calls were directed to HMRC’s online services (as above). 

Throughout the trials, HMRC continued to provide helpline support for people who: 

• had difficulty using the online services, through the Online Services Helpdesk (OSH) 

• needed extra support because of their health or personal circumstances, through the Extra Support Team (EST)     

This document provides a summary of the findings from each trial and lessons learned.  

Summary of findings

1. Analysis to date of both the seasonal trial and the SA peak shows that customers’ filing rates and payments are in line with, or better than, previous tax years and not impacted by asking them to self-serve online

A record-number of returns were filed for the 2022 to 2023 tax year: 11.5 million tax returns were filed by 31 January 2024. This includes 1.75 million SA tax returns for the 2022 to 2023 tax year that were filed during the SA helpline closure. This is more than during the same period in each of the previous 3 years.

3.97 million payments with an SA reference were made during the closure; and 4.84 million payments with an SA reference were made during the SA peak. For both trials this is more than during the same period in each of the previous 4 years. 

2. The seasonal model trial resulted in more customers self-serving through GOV.UK and the SA digital assistant, whereas other online activity continued the strong growth seen prior to the trial. In the SA peak trial, there was clear evidence that customers made more use of online services than in the previous year

The summer closure trial resulted in an increase in SA related page views on GOV.UK (up 42% compared to the same period last year) and an increase in usage of the SA digital assistant. Other online services continued the strong growth seen before the trial. For example, there were 7.18 million HMRC App sessions during the helpline closure, up 71% on the same period in 2022. 

There was also growth in the use of online self-serve during the 2024 SA peak. There was a 6% increase in the SA related page views on GOV.UK compared to the 2023 SA peak. Usage of the Personal Tax Account (PTA), Business Tax Account (BTA) and the HMRC App by SA customers increased during the 2024 SA peak. The growth observed in the SA peak period was lower than before the SA peak period.  During the peak, however, the SA helpline remained open to handle SA filing, payments and repayment queries which are the top reasons for calls at this time of year. 

During the summer closure trial, HMRC received the equivalent of 357,000 contacts. In the equivalent period in 2022, 864,000 SA helpline calls were routed to an adviser. This is a drop of over 500,000 calls between the 2 periods. 

On the SA helpline, HMRC received 980,000 calls during the 2024 SA peak, down from 1,128,000 at the previous SA peak. 

However, HMRC want more customers to self-serve. There was a rise in the use of the digital assistant where customers can self-serve to get advice and guidance specific to their query. But significant proportions of these went on to request a webchat with an adviser and did not self-serve. There were 500,000 digital assistant interactions during the SA closure and 341,000 during the SA peak. During the SA closure, 68% of digital assistant interactions resulted in a request for a webchat and 54% did during the SA peak.  

Overall, the volume of customer contact needing to be handled by advisers reduced in the peak period, from 1,271,000 in the 2023 peak to 1,017,000 in the 2024 peak. Contact needing to be handled by advisers includes calls where the customer chose to speak to an adviser and webchat requests.  

During the SA helpline closure, 74% of SA webchat requests were handled by an adviser compared to 60% prior to the closure. During the 2024 SA peak, 67% of webchat requests were handled by an adviser compared to 46% at the 2023 SA peak.

During the 2024 SA peak, 65% of customers who called and wanted to speak to an adviser were able to do so, an improvement on the 60% at the 2023 SA peak.   

3. Customers who are unable to use online services were able to access the extra help they needed

During the seasonal trial, the OSH provided both online help and a triage service for those who needed extra support. 26,000 calls were transferred to the Extra Support Team (EST), more than 3 times the number of calls prior to the trial. 88.2% of these calls were handled by an adviser. 

HMRC also continued to support customers calling the SA helpline about a bereavement. During the closure, 2,500 calls were routed to an adviser and 95.9% of these were handled by an adviser. 

4. It is too early to say if there has been a long-term shift from phone contact to online self-service but there are encouraging signs

During September 2023, the total number of SA telephony contacts was 12% higher than September 2022. This was driven by an increase in the first week of the helpline reopening. During October the total number of SA telephony contacts was 6% higher than 2022 but in November the total number of SA telephony contacts was 7% lower than 2022.

SA digital assistant interactions and use of the Personal Tax Account (PTA), Business Tax Account (BTA), HMRC App and GOV.UK pages have all remained high when the helpline reopened compared to last year. For example, between 4 September 2023 and 3 December 2023, compared to the same period in the previous year:

• SA digital assistant interactions during opening hours increased from 108,000 to 282,000

• the PTA and BTA SA service usage had increased from 2.88 million sessions to 3.39 million sessions, up 18%

• HMRC App usage from SA customers had increased from 4.2 million sessions to 7.15 million sessions, up 70%

5. Customer exit surveys are not directly comparable across channels, but can be compared within channels. Customer satisfaction was high on online channels during both trials and confirms customers rate HMRC’s online services highly; and SA telephony satisfaction scores declined at the SA peak trial compared to last year

Online service

During the closure trial, online service satisfaction covering SA service and filing, pay online, BTA SA services and PTA personal tax homepage was consistently high. Before during and after the closure customer satisfaction was 80.6%, 79.9%, 78.4% respectively.   

Satisfaction scores for online services during the 2024 SA peak were 79.7%, compared to 80.2% during the 2023 SA peak. This is at a time when more customers, who may not otherwise have made it their first choice, were using the online services. 

Webchat service

SA webchat scores dropped during the closure trial. However, satisfaction was still above 70% at a time when more customers who preferred to use the phone moved to webchat. 

OSH webchat satisfaction scores were lower than SA webchat scores before the trial (46.5% compared to 76.3%). They dropped during the closure (39.4%) but recovered to pre-closure levels after the trial (47.3%).

Telephone service

While scores for the main SA helpline were consistent before and after the closure trial, OSH telephony scores were lower early in the trial as the proportion of adviser attempts handled dropped. However, by the end of the trial, adviser attempts handled improved, and scores returned to pre-trial levels.  

Satisfaction scores were lower at the 2024 SA peak than at the 2023 SA peak for the SA Helpline (35.2% compared to 42.7%) and the Agents Dedicated Line (33.5% compared to 53.4%). Scores for the OSH, while still low, were higher at the 2024 SA peak (34.3% compared to 24.1%). 

6. During the summer closure trial HMRC were able to redeploy colleagues to other work, and in particular, reduce repayment progress chasing - a key driver of customer contact

Advisers freed up by the reduction in customer contact during the closure were redeployed to process customer post and work-items where customers had overpaid tax (SA overpayments). 373,000 more SA overpayment work-items were processed than during the same period last year. Clearing these work items helped to get customers’ affairs up to date, including producing repayments.  

Before the helpline closure, there had been 124,000 calls progress chasing SA repayments this year. This accounted for 21% of the helpline calls and was much higher than the same period last year. When the helpline reopened in September, repayment calls had fallen and were back in line with the previous year’s levels. 

7. HMRC has learnt a lot from the trials which will help in the design of online and telephony services in the future

Attempts to direct callers to online self-serve was below our forecast for the 2024 SA peak. This may have been for a number of reasons, including customers returning with issues that could have been addressed online or because of the complexity of their query.

12% (113,000) of customers who called the SA helpline for a non-prioritised reason (such as not about filing, payment or repayments) were directed to online services before their call was ended. Of the 113,000, 61% (70,000) dialled the SA helpline again within five working days. HMRC will review the calls that can be directed to online services, as well as the adviser training plans.

There were also decreases in customer satisfaction scores for telephone services between the 2023 and 2024 SA peaks. This is likely related to increased call wait times on the SA helpline (36 minutes on average during the 2024 SA peak, 8 minutes longer than the 2023 SA peak). 

This may also be because the telephone exit survey is offered to all customers at the start of a call and can be completed regardless of whether a call is answered or not. Customers whose calls were not prioritised may have been more likely to express dissatisfaction with the telephone service. While customer exit surveys are not directly comparable across channels, HMRC will work to develop further insight into customers’ experiences.