HMRC to Receive £6.4bn Investment with Focus on Compliance and Digital Services

Buried towards the end of yesterday’s spending review documentation Spending Review 2025 - GOV.UK is the announcement of an extra £6.4 billion for HMRC. This is planned to provide for an additional 5,500 compliance staff and 2,400 debt management staff. For those of us who have to liaise with HMRC on a regular basis this would appear to be a welcome change as response times for fairly straight forward enquires can be many months at present and HMRC by their own admission accept that their overall performance is well below acceptable levels.

Unfortunately this won’t mean that it will be easier to pick up the phone and get a quick response to your tax problems. The direction of travel at HMRC is firmly towards increasing digitisation of the tax service. An additional £500 million is being provided for the next three years with the stated aim of making 90% of “customer interactions” self-serve by 2029-30.  HMRCs plan is that by reducing the availability of personal contact and encouraging taxpayers to do everything online this will improve efficiency and provide a better overall experience for the tax paying public.

I quote from HMRCs 2023/24 annual review: “our overall service levels on telephony and correspondence remained below our service standards in 2023 to 2024, and we recognise that this caused real difficulties for some customers and agents. To deliver the service standards our customers expect, our aim is to reduce the volume of contact through phone and correspondence over time and boost the number of customers self-serving online, without needing to contact us.” HM Revenue & Customs

I readily acknowledge that when HMRCs digital systems work the experience is good, but when the computer gets it wrong it can be very difficult and frustrating trying to put right.  I worry that the opportunity to phone HMRC and speak to someone is being gradually withdrawn.

To end on an optimistic note, lets hope that the extra compliance staff and further investment in digital infrastructure will be successful in reducing errors along with the need to pick up the phone. No one likes to pay tax, but an efficient accurate and fair tax service is a vital part of a vibrant successful society.