In July 2025, HMRC published its transformation roadmap, setting out how it intends to meet the objectives set for it by the government of:
- closing the tax gap;
- improving services; and
- reforming and modernising the tax system.
HMRC has now published details of its performance in meeting those priorities for the period from April to June 2025.
Key service targets
The data published by HMRC suggests that it is now meeting its target of 80% customer satisfaction with its phone, webchat and digital services and is making progress towards meeting its target of answering 85% of calls. For the quarter ended 30 June 2025, HMRC answered 83.7% of calls, compared to just 57.5% for the same quarter in 2024 and 71.5% for the year ended 31 March 2025.
However, HMRC continues to fail to meet its target to respond to 80% of post within 15 days, recording just 69.5% for the quarter ended 30 June 2025. This is down on the same quarter last year (77.1%) and the year ended 31 March 2025 (76.9%). HMRC says that this is due to having to move staff from post to calls to deal with the self assessment peak and that it is working on the backlog.
Despite the £51m funding announced in May 2024 to improve customer service, HMRC still appears to be insufficiently resourced to cope with customer service demand.
| Quarter ended 30 June 2025 | Comparison: 2024/25 | Comparison: Quarter ended 30 June 2024 | Target for 2025/2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Satisfaction | 80.2% | 79.7% | 78.5% | 80% |
| Post: correspondence cleared within 15 working days | 69.5% | 76.9% | 77.1% | 80% |
| Post: correspondence cleared within 40 working days | 84.1%* | 88.2% | 90.3% | 95% |
| Net easy score | +63.5 | +62.2 | +60 | +65 |
| Telephones: adviser attempts handled | 83.7% | 71.5% | 57.5% | 85% |
| Telephones: average speed of answer | 13 minutes 14 seconds | 18 minutes 38 seconds | 27 minutes 2 seconds | n/a |
| Telephones: callers waiting for more than 10 minutes | 50.3% | 60.6% | 75.9% | n/a |
| Compliance yield | £9bn | £48bn | £8.4bn | £50.4bn |
*Data provided for April and May 2025 only
Source for figures for 2024/25 including the quarter ended 30 June 2024: HMRC quarterly performance update: January to March 2025 - GOV.UK
Move to digital services
There was a small increase, from 76.2% for 2024/25 to 76.4% for the quarter ended 30 June 2025, in the number of interactions with HMRC that were through automated or digital self-serve channels. It was announced at the Spending Review 2025 that HMRC is aiming for 90% of interactions being self-service/digital by 2029/30.
The data also reveals that HMRC’s app gained 758,623 new users between April and June 2025.
Tax debt
It would also appear that HMRC has enjoyed some success in reducing the amount of tax debt. This stood at £42.6 billion at the end of June 2025, down from £43.4bn at 30 June 2024 and £44 billion at the end of March 2025. ICAEW explored the government’s efforts to reduce tax debt in a recent article.
Further information
Learn more about HMRC’s transformation roadmap, including its plans to improve services for taxpayers and agents, by listening to a recent episode of ICAEW’s The Tax Track podcast.
Tax policy update
HM Treasury will be attending ICAEW's Annual Conference 2025 with a session discussing tax policy and economic growth in the weeks ahead of the Budget.
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