Corporate report

HMRC monthly performance update: January 2017

Published 23 February 2017

These figures show how we’re performing against our main customer service objectives.

These objectives are all about:

• how we’re helping customers to do things online
• how quickly we answer your phone calls
• how quickly we handle your letters
• how we handle complaints

Our objectives are set by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and are published in our single departmental plan.

1. Performance at a glance

Below is the full set of figures for our performance against our customer service objectives for January 2017.

	January 2017	Change from December 2016	Year-to-date (since April 2016)	Target
Average speed of answering a customer call	03:00	+ 01:18	03:58	06:00 mins
% of call attempts handled	93%	- 3.5%	91%	85%
% of post handled within 15 days	78%	- 5.0%	81%	80%
% of post handled within 40 days	96%	+ 1.4%	97%	95%
Number of customers using their personal tax account	0.9m	+ 0.5m	8.3m	7m
Customer satisfaction with digital services	72%	- 2.3%	74%	80%
i-Forms responded to within seven days	98%	+ 0.2%	99%	95%
Number of Tier 1 complaints received	5,427	+ 374	63,431	-

Notes:

• Call attempts in December 2016 were 2.7 million, and in January 2017 were 4.7 million, in line with expectation
• Data for post handled within 40 days is one month lagged and shows December 2016 performance, the change from November 2016 and year-to-date figure to December 2016
• Personal tax account performance measured from the launch of the personal tax account in December 2015

2. Digital services

2.1 Personal tax account

We want at least 7 million people using their personal tax account by April 2017.

At the end of January 2017, the number of people using their personal tax account was:

8.3 million

There were 0.9 million new users of the personal tax account during January 2017.

2.2 Customer satisfaction

We want to achieve an average of 80% customer satisfaction for our digital services across the year.

During January 2017, our average customer satisfaction rate for all digital services was:

72%

3. Phones

Our aim is to achieve a consistent level of service across our phone helplines.

We aim to:

• answer answer customer calls to our helplines within an average speed of answer of 6 minutes across the year
• handle on average at least 85% of call attempts across the year

We received 4.7 million telephone calls in January 2017, which was in line with our expectations. January is the busiest month for phone calls due to the deadline for submitting Self-Assessment tax returns.

3.1 Speed of phone answering

During January 2017 we answered our phones in an average of:

3 mins 0 seconds

Our overall average speed of answer since April 2016 is 3 minutes 58 seconds.

3.2 Phone calls handled

During January 2017 we handled on average:

93% of our calls

Our overall average call handling rate since April 2016 is 91%.

4. Post

We received 0.9 million targeted post items in January 2017.

We aim to reply to at least 80% of customer correspondence and complaints within 15 working days across the year.

During January 2017 we responded to:

78% of customer post within 15 days

Overall since April 2016 we have responded to 81% of post within 15 days.

5. Complaints

We want to get all our interactions with customers right first time. We deal with 45 million individuals and more than 5.4 million businesses. Each year we receive more than 60 million phone calls and 15 million letters.

If a customer is unhappy with our service, we aim to resolve a customer’s complaint at the first stage (Tier 1), but if they are still dissatisfied, they can ask us to look at their concerns again (Tier 2). We treat complaints seriously and learn lessons from them.

In 2015 to 2016, we received 80,391 complaints and resolved 98.5% of these internally.

If a customer thinks our decision is incorrect after the second review, they can contact the Adjudicator’s office which is independent of HMRC.

If a customer still remains dissatisfied, they can approach the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman via their MP.

There’s more detailed guidance on how we handle and resolve complaints.

Definitions:

• ‘Fully upheld’ means we agree with the key part of the customer’s complaint
• ‘Partially upheld’ means we agree with some but not all of the customer’s complaint
• ‘Not upheld’ means we don’t agree with the customer’s complaint

5.1 Tier 1 complaints - since April 2016

Tier 1 complaints received

Tier 1 complaints cleared

	Apr 2016	May 2016	Jun 2016	Jul 2016	Aug 2016	Sep 2016	Oct 2016	Nov 2016	Dec 2016	Jan 2017	Feb 2017	Mar 2017
Tier 1 complaints not upheld	52%	49%	50%	50%	51%	50%	55%	52%	50%	50%
Tier 1 complaints partially upheld	16%	15%	16%	17%	16%	18%	16%	17%	16%	17%
Tier 1 complaints fully upheld	33%	36%	34%	33%	33%	32%	29%	31%	34%	34%

Note: Due to rounding these figures may not add up to 100%.

5.2 Tier 2 complaints - since April 2016

Tier 2 complaints received

Tier 2 complaints cleared

	Apr 2016	May 2016	Jun 2016	Jul 2016	Aug 2016	Sep 2016	Oct 2016	Nov 2016	Dec 2016	Jan 2017	Feb 2017	Mar 2017
Tier 2 complaints not upheld	60%	58%	53%	57%	58%	55%	57%	61%	51%	48%
Tier 2 complaints partially upheld	23%	23%	28%	25%	25%	28%	25%	22%	24%	26%
Tier 2 complaints fully upheld	17%	19%	19%	19%	17%	16%	17%	18%	25%	26%

Note: Due to rounding these figures may not add up to 100%.

The in-year figures reported are initial management information to provide an indication of our performance. They are subject to revision and audit. Final full-year performance figures will be made available in our annual reports.