Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of trends in the number of staff in HMRC working from home on the (a) average time taken to process cases and (b) quality of service provision.

HMRC takes the quality of customer service very seriously.

HMRC’s approach to hybrid working is in line with many private and public sector organisations.

HMRC’s workforce plan includes the effective use of hybrid working where this meets business needs; staff are held to the same standards if they are working from an HMRC building or from home.

On average, HMRC advisers answer the same number of calls whether they are in the office or at home and process more customer correspondence when working from home. HMRC constantly monitor call volumes to ensure they deploy available staff where they need them. They use a flexible workforce model, where staff may switch between answering phone calls, processing correspondence, and replying to webchat enquiries throughout the day as needed.