HMRC officials are looking to ease the pain of filing tax returns and crack down on poor customer service by consulting with the private sector, The i Paper can reveal
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is seeking advice from companies including banks and energy providers about ways to boost the experience of taxpayers.
This year’s deadline for individuals to file their self-assessment tax returns falls on 31 January, with £100 fines for anyone who is up to three months late.
Previous years have brought extensive complaints that it is too difficult to contact HMRC via the telephone or online, particularly in the weeks running up to the deadline.
The average wait time on the phone for 2023-24 was nearly 23 minutes, according to the National Audit Office, up from just five minutes in 2018-19. The watchdog said there was little sign that the expansion of digital services had improved the situation.
Last year HMRC announced it would close its self-assessment hotline for half the year in order to free up capacity, but was forced to reverse the decision after just a day following a backlash.
Ministers have instructed the taxman to work with the private sector on how to improve the situation, as part of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s general drive to bring more outside expertise into public services.
A spokesman for HMRC said: “We’re talking with a range of businesses which have used technology to improve the services they provide for their customers. Learning from these conversations will help accelerate our ongoing work to become a digital-first organisation, giving our customers quicker and easier ways to manage their tax affairs.”
The sectors being consulted are understood to include finance, energy and retailers. HMRC is also speaking to taxpayers and other stakeholders as part of the exercise.
The agency’s “digital transformation roadmap”, laying out the details of how it intends to improve its services, will be published in the coming months.
Starmer has repeatedly promised to introduce private-sector expertise in the public sector in a variety of forms – although at the same time he pledges to cut down on the use of external consultancy contracts.
The civil service is expanding a scheme for high-flyers in careers such as technology to spend some time working on Whitehall, in the understanding they will return to their usual jobs in due course.
But unions have warned ministers against displaying a lack of trust in officials, a warning heightened after Starmer used a speech to accuse some civil servants of being comfortable with a “tepid bath of managed decline”.
Previous efforts to bring in large numbers of outsiders to Whitehall have ended up foundering after complaints that it is too hard to change the structures of the civil service.
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