It would be fair to say that it\u2019s been a turbulent year for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).<\/p>\n
This week, the tax authority attracted additional criticism after it emerged that, on average, someone calling the HMRC helpline can expect to wait 38 minutes to get an answer.<\/p>\n
A survey, co-ordinated by the consumer watchdog Which?, found that the wait was more than twice as long last year, when a typical caller was found to spend 18 minutes on hold.<\/p>\n
The one bit of good news is that only seven out of 100 calls were cut off, down from 29 when the same survey was carried out in 2014.<\/p>\n
Officials have come under mounting pressure to improve their response times and the latest research is likely to bring fresh calls for HMRC to step up its performance.<\/p>\n
Responding to the survey, the tax authority suggested the Which? research – conducted during September and October of this year \u2013 was out-of-date and there had been a marked improvement in customer service in the past few months.<\/p>\n
Over 3,000 more customer service staff are understood to have been recruited to answer telephone enquiries.<\/p>\n
A spokesman said: \u201cOur service levels were not good enough at busy periods earlier this year, and we have apologised for the inconvenience caused to our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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