Corporate report

HMRC monthly performance update: October 2018

Published 6 December 2018

These figures show how we’re performing against our main customer service objectives, which are about:

• how we’re helping our online customers
• how quickly we answer their phone calls
• how quickly we handle their post
• how we handle complaints

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

1. At a glance

These are the figures for our customer service contact volumes, and performance against our customer service objectives.

1.1 Contact volumes

Note: demand for our customer services may vary significantly between months due to the seasonal nature of revenue and customs administration.

	Current month	Year-to-date since April 2018	Compared to year-to-date 2017-18
Personal tax account new users	0.3m	17.6m [1]	13.3m [1]
iForms received	118,489	1,005,572	768,419
Calls received	3,402,255	26,072,550	29,150,767
Post received [2] [4]	1,465,791	11,509,104	11,415,768
New complaints received [3]	5,799	43,284	44,661

Notes

1. The number of people who have set up a personal tax account since its launch in December 2015.
2. Post is not always categorised on our live system during the month it is received, meaning that numbers may be revised in subsequent monthly reports. The current month will be subject to greatest revision.
3. Complaints are not always logged on our live system during the month they are received, and the numbers may be revised in subsequent monthly reports. The current month will be subject to greatest revision.
4. Historically, some parts of Customer Services Group recorded their work by the subject of the task (such as tax credits or Self Assessment) while other areas recorded their work by the contact channel (such as post or phone). Creation of Business Tax & Customs (BT&C) in our Customer Service Group brought together several teams from across HMRC. To support business delivery, an exercise was undertaken to standardise recording. This has highlighted a significant number of work items being reclassified as ‘post’ within BT&C. While these were not recorded in our post statistics, they have always been treated as post and the performance has been aligned to that of our targeted post.

1.2 Performance

	Current month	Year-to-date since April 2018	Compared to year-to-date 2017-18	Target
Customer satisfaction with digital services	79.8%	80.0%	80.0%	80%
Customer iForms cleared within 7 days of receipt	95.7%	92.7%	92.9%	95%
Average speed of answering a customer’s call [1]	05 minutes 04 seconds	04 minutes 59 seconds	04 minutes 36 seconds	05:00 minutes
Customers waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser	19.1%	17.7%	15.3%	No more than 15%
Customer post cleared within 15 days of receipt [2]	90.6%	79.2%	76.5%	80%
Customer post cleared within 40 days of receipt [3]	98.0%	96.0%	96.3%	95%
Handle new tax credit and Child Benefit claims and change of circumstance (UK) [3]	12.7 days	11.8 days	13.6 days	An average of 22 days
Handle new tax credit and Child Benefit claims and change of circumstance (international) [3]	56.3 days	61.6 days	50.7 days	An average of 92 days

Notes

1. Average speed of answer data is recorded from the time a customer requests to speak to an adviser, after going through our automated routing response system.
2. Post turnaround refers to post to which customers require a response.
3. This data is lagged by a month.

The figures reported during the year are compiled from initial management information to provide an indication of our performance. They are subject to revision and audit. Final full-year performance figures will be published in our annual report and accounts.

2. Customer satisfaction with digital services

Our target for 2018 to 2019 is that 80% of customers are either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with our digital services for the year.

This month, the percentage of customers who were either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with our digital services was:

79.8%

3. iForms

Our target for 2018 to 2019 is to turnaround 95% of iForms within 7 days for the year. We received more than 118,000 iForms this month and we turned around:

95.7% of customer iForms within 7 days

4. Phones

We aim for a consistent service across our phone helplines. We received more than 3.4 million calls this month.

Our targets for 2018 to 2019 are:

• to answer customer calls within an average of 5 minutes for the year
• to ensure that no more than 15% of customer calls are waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser for the year

4.1 Average speed of answering a call

This month, we answered our phones in an average of:

5 mins 4 seconds

4.2 Customer calls waiting more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser

This month the percentage of customer calls that took more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser:

19.1%

5. Post

We received more than one million items of post this month for which customers require a response.

Our target for 2018 to 2019 is to turnaround 80% of post for the year within 15 days.

This month we turned around:

90.6% of customer post within 15 days

6. Tax credits and Child Benefit

Our targets for 2018 to 2019 are:

• to handle new tax credits and Child Benefit claims and changes of circumstances for UK customers within an average of 22 days for the year
• to handle new tax credits and Child Benefit claims and changes of circumstances for international customers within an average of 92 days for the year

This month, we handled new claims and changes of circumstances for UK customers within an average of:

12.7 days

And we handled new claims and changes of circumstances for international customers within an average of:

56.3 days

7. Complaints

We want to get all our interactions with customers right first time, but if a customer is unhappy with our service, we aim to resolve their complaint quickly and fairly.

Read more detailed guidance on how we handle and resolve complaints.

Definitions:

• a ‘Tier 1 complaint’ is when a customer complains and we aim to resolve their case at this stage
• a ‘Tier 2 complaint’ is when a customer is dissatisfied with our decision on their initial complaint (Tier 1) and they have asked us to look at their concerns again
• ‘fully upheld’ means we agree with the main part of a customer’s complaint
• ‘partially upheld’ means we agree with some, but not all of, a customer’s complaint
• ‘not upheld’ means we don’t agree with a customer’s complaint

7.1 Tier 1 complaints

We received 5,799 Tier 1 complaints this month.

Note: complaints are not always logged on our live system during the month they are received and the numbers can, therefore, be revised upwards for subsequent monthly reports. The current month will be subject to greatest revision.

Tier 1 complaints cleared

	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
Tier 1 complaints fully upheld	36.3%	34.9%	36.0%	36.1%	36.9%	33.9%	33.9%
Tier 1 complaints partially upheld	15.8%	15.0%	15.8%	16.9%	16.6%	16.7%	17.2%
Tier 1 complaints not upheld	47.9%	50.1%	48.2%	47.0%	46.5%	49.3%	48.9%

Note: due to rounding up or down, these figures may not add up to 100%.

7.2 Tier 2 complaints

We received 454 Tier 2 complaints this month.

Note: complaints are not always logged on our live system during the month they are received and the numbers can, therefore, be revised upwards for subsequent monthly reports. The current month will be subject to greatest revision.

Tier 2 complaints cleared

	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
Tier 2 complaints fully upheld	17.0%	17.4%	18.3%	21.2%	22.1%	20.5%	20.3%
Tier 2 complaints partially upheld	21.3%	21.3%	17.4%	16.2%	19.3%	22.9%	21.0%
Tier 2 complaints not upheld	61.7%	61.3%	64.3%	62.6%	58.7%	56.6%	58.7%

Note: due to rounding up or down, these figures may not add up to 100%.