Mrs Madeleine Moon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mrs Madeleine Moon on 2015-12-10.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for the HMRC public service helpline.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has recruited 3,000 new staff into customer service roles this year. In particular, this has increased the number of people available on its telephone helplines outside normal office hours, when many customers choose to call.

HMRC has also undertaken its biggest-ever training programme as it seeks to build its customer support teams. This has included training 1,600 existing staff on a wider range of work to better meet customer demand.

Average call waiting times have improved significantly. From April to June it was 19 mins; from July to September it was 13 mins; in November it was under 10 minutes.