HMRC's performance measures - March 2021

HMRC's performance targets are set out in their single departmental plan, updated on 1 October 2019. These include a number of customer-orientated measures such as call handling times and post turnaround. These measures are reported by HMRC on a monthly and quarterly basis.

In this schedule we identify those performance measures and highlight how HMRC has performed against them. We will keep this page updated regularly.

Commentary on figures published on 13 July 2021:

HMRC’s latest figures provide provisional performance data for the month of March 2021 and for the final quarter of 2020-21.

HMRC has published its own commentary on its provisional performance results for 2020-21, setting out the vital role it has played in the government’s COVID-19 response.

Call waiting times in March have again increased further and stood at over seventeen and a half minutes, the highest they’ve been in at least three years (against a target of five minutes), with a year to date average for 2020-21 of just over twelve minutes. In March over half of all callers had to wait more than ten minutes to speak to an adviser (against a target of 15%), with a year to date average of nearly 45%. As with most organisations adapting to work patterns in the lights of COVID-19, there has been a significant impact on phone services.

I-form performance in March continued to be less than half its target, with 46% of forms cleared within seven days of receipt (against a target of 95%). Poor post performance has also continued, with just 36% of post in March being cleared within 15 days of receipt (against a target of 80%); dragging down the year to date average to 64%. In March less than 72% of post was handled within 40 days of receipt (against a target of 95%).

Customer satisfaction with HMRC’s digital services remains high, being 83% in March (against a target of 80%), with a year to date average of 85%. Similarly, HMRC continues to handle tax credit and child benefit claims comfortably within its service level targets.

If you have any comments regarding this schedule please contact [email protected].