Performance on calls and post 

The additional investment of £51m in May 2024 was starting to have some impact on HMRC’s service performance, particularly on the key measure it was intended to address. HMRC met its target of answering 85% of calls in the quarter to December 2024. HMRC had warned that the target might not be met in January 2025 due to the self assessment peak and that was the outcome, with 72.9% of calls being answered. However, it is very concerning that performance did not improve in February 2025, with 72.8% of calls being answered. 

HMRC had been close to its target of responding to 80% of post within 15 working days but performance has fallen, to only 73% in February. There has also been a deterioration in call waiting times. The average call waiting time (from the end of automated messages) in the quarter to December 2024 was around 11 minutes, but this slipped to 19 minutes in January 2025 and declined further to 21 minutes in February 2025. 

Explanation provided by HMRC 

ICAEW asked HMRC to comment. HMRC advised that the funding settlement it received at the Autumn Budget 2024 means that it will be able to meet its service standards in 2025/26, including handling 85% of phone calls and answering 80% of correspondence within 15 working days. HMRC said that January and February 2025 saw much higher demand on its PAYE helplines due to the need to issue 300,000 pay as you earn tax calculations (P800s and simple assessments), mostly to collect the correct tax for income earned on bank and building society interest. HMRC says that it is confident that its performance figures for March 2025 will show improvement.

Issues reported by ICAEW members 

Caroline Miskin, Senior Technical Manager, Digital Taxation, ICAEW Tax Faculty said “It is extremely disappointing that the improvements that we had seen in HMRC performance have not been sustained. I receive regular feedback from members and so, unfortunately, the latest statistics did not come as a surprise.” 

The most common issues being raised now by ICAEW members include: 

• Long waiting times on the agent dedicated line and calls being cut off.
• Delays to repayments, particularly repayments that were claimed on 2023/24 self assessment tax returns and have not been actioned by HMRC.
• Delays to processing of claims, particularly for claims made outside of the tax return such as overpayment relief and claims made under the enterprise investment scheme and similar schemes.
• Simple assessments, including a significant volume being issued to those who have already filed self assessment returns.
• Agent accounts being suspended and not being restored for a long period. 

HMRC launched a resolution service for agents on 31 March 2025. ICAEW would appreciate feedback on this service to caroline.miskin@icaew.com.  

Further information 

• ICAEW’s recent TAXline article Follow the numbers: calling HMRC | ICAEW considers HMRC’s performance on calls, drawing on HMRC’s statistics up to 31 December 2024 and the joint ICAEW and CIOT report published in December 2024.