A Freedom of Information request has revealed that a quarter of callers to HMRC's PAYE helpline were frustrated by an average waiting time of 6 minutes.
It was also gleaned that 28% callers lost the will to live and hung up part way through their call which represented a 10% increase from 2009 when the holding time was 1 minute and 53 seconds. The average for 2011 was 5 minutes and 45 seconds.
This recent revelation perhaps comes as no surprise when it was recently revealed that one in four tax helpline calls go unanswered and that complaints regarding delays had risen by nearly a third.
In the last year taxpayers lodged 76,000 complaints with HMRC which was an increase of 3,000 from the previous year. Rises in complaints from 2008/09 have spawned claims that the Revenue's call centres were undermanned.
Less than half of taxpayers were able to contact an advisor at their first attempt, whereas the benchmark was 90%.
In May, David Gauke, the Exchequer Secretary admitted that HMRC recognised that it had further improvements to make and by 2014/15 aimed to answer 90% of call attempts. If the writers recent experiences are anything to go by they have an awful lot of work to do especially set against the backdrop of a department that is making staff cuts.
Yes – 1 of the 4 million. Call center staff are friendly and competent when you get through but a waiting time of over 20 minutes is unacceptable