The proportion of calls being answered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is lower than it would have been had the helpline overhaul been implemented, MPs have heard.
Jim Harra, chief executive of HMRC, told the Treasury Committee that more vulnerable and digitally excluded customers would have been helped if the revenue body had been able to proceed with its plans.
HMRC announced plans to overhaul its helpline service on March 19, which saw the Self-Assessment Helpline due to close for part of the year.
However, the plan was halted on March 20 following protests from various organizations, including tax and accounting professionals and small and medium-sized businesses.
The plan would have meant that the self-assessment helpline would close between April and September and customers would be directed to self-service via an online service.
Mr Harra said the decision not to proceed with the change was due to unexpected “strong feelings” from stakeholders.
He told the committee: “Ministers have certainly expressed concern about the strength of the reaction and that reaction has not been simply a political reaction but a genuine concern about how this will all play out in practice. work.
“And we quickly agreed that the right thing to do was not to move forward with this and listen to these concerns and make sure we addressed them, or if we didn't, take them into account and re-plan. So we decided not to proceed any further.”
He said HMRC continues to invest heavily in digital services and, where possible, encourages customers to use digital services as their first port of call, but the helpline will remain open as usual.
When asked about the consequences of not implementing the changes announced on March 19, Mr Harra said: “The biggest pressure is on the helpline service. It could be wait time, or it could be the percentage of calls that successfully get a response from an advisor.
“And today we are answering fewer calls than if we had been able to implement these changes.
“Because customers that we would have diverted to online services are today moving through these helplines.”
There were strong emotions from stakeholders that were different from what we had expected and expressed concerns about what we believed we could present to the stakeholders we considered.
Jim Hara, HMRC
He said HMRC needed to re-plan to ensure service levels were as high as possible.
Prime Minister Harra said he had had “positive and constructive” discussions with ministers.
Asked if he was worried the situation would get worse, Mr Harra said: “Certainly in the short term, I think we're in for a very difficult first quarter. “We look forward to making improvements in the second quarter with additional resources and allowing us to continue to drive our digital-first strategy whenever the opportunity arises.”
He added: “If we had been able to continue, I think the evidence from last year’s trials leaves no doubt that we would have been able to help our more vulnerable and digitally excluded customers. “The call was blocked by another caller who was able to handle the call more effectively online.”
Mr Harra said there were “lessons for the department in how we communicate with stakeholders”.
Commenting on the announcement on March 19, Mr Harra said previously: “HMRC decided it was a good idea to do this based on the results of last year’s trial, but this has been shared with ministers.”
When asked if he knew the date, he answered, “Yes.”
When asked who the stakeholders were that led to the decision being reversed on March 20, he said: “We received an immediate response from a range of stakeholders, including tax professional bodies, who expressed concerns despite last year’s trial and assessment. It was that we were moving too fast.
“And they had no confidence that they would be able to serve customers who, for example, could not work online.
“And we concluded that the best course of action was to suspend the changes we had announced.”
When asked why this work had not been implemented by external stakeholders before March 19, Mr Harra said: “Yes, we have spoken to stakeholders, particularly the tax professional group, and we know they do not want us to proceed with this. “Quite frankly, they want us to not make any of these significant changes and just receive resources the way we’ve always done.”
He added: “I’m not saying there are new stakeholders coming out of the woodwork. There was strong sentiment from stakeholders, who expressed concern that this was not what we had hoped for and the problems we anticipated. “We will be able to show it to the stakeholders we have considered.”
He said HMRC’s strategy “is still a digital-first strategy…”
“What we have said we will do is engage more deeply with stakeholders about how we can safely implement a digital-first strategy. This may mean executing more slowly than originally planned.”
He told him this would not make the stakeholders feel much different. “The lesson for us is that we did an extensive evaluation of both trials, but we only published the results on March 19, so outsiders didn’t get those results. It is an opportunity to absorb it in the same way that we and the Ministers have had.
“So I think we need to look at all the concerns our stakeholders have, all the evidence about whether those concerns are warranted or not, and our plans for how we are going to address them.
“In the meantime, we will undoubtedly implement our strategy more slowly than we promised on March 19.”