HMRC’s customer service staff numbers revealed

HMRC has come under increasing pressure over the last year, with the performance levels of the customer service team facing more scrutiny and clearly not where it would want them to be. However, it’s little wonder that HMRC is struggling under the demands being made of it.

The 2021 Budget started the recent trend of ‘stealth tax’ measures, when it was announced by Rishi Sunak as chancellor that the income tax personal allowance and higher rate threshold were to be frozen from April 2022 until 2026. In turn, more individuals will have found themselves paying tax for the first time and those paying higher rates of income tax increased. It was perhaps inevitable that the demands on HMRC would increase as a result.

So what impact might this have had on HMRC’s customer service team levels and staff retention? Following a freedom of information request by RSM UK, HMRC has confirmed that its customer service staff levels have fallen by over 5% in the last calendar year. 

Specifically, the customer service staff numbers have fallen from 20,139 from December 2022 to 18,996 in December 2023, a drop off of 1,143.  

Perhaps most worrying is that there appears to be a general trend that staff retention rates are worsening progressively over the year, indicating that perhaps worse is still to come. The full details provided by HMRC for 2023 can be seen in the table below:

When providing this data, HMRC noted that ‘we have moved to a flexible workforce model where our customer advisers can operate between different channels of customer communications such as answering calls, processing customer correspondence, or addressing webchat enquiries throughout the day. This allows us to react to peaks in demand and deploy staff more efficiently. We no longer have customer services staff working exclusively in call centres.’ 

This emphasises that there is clearly a focus on HMRC trying to maximise the output and efficiency of the resources available to them. However, there is a tipping point where a lack of resource can be demoralising for staff being put under increasing pressure, ultimately leading to more departures. With more demands being placed on fewer staff, it is not immediately clear how HMRC will find a path back to the performance levels being asked of them. If HMRC is under-funded, then it feels like a false economy given it can pay its own way in driving government revenues.