New figures show that calls about Universal Credit are answered 15 times quicker than tax queries. The Government’s benefit helpline responds much faster than HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Last year, former Employment Minister Guy Opperman said that in March 2023, the average wait time for a call to the Universal Credit helpline was only 1 minute and 28 seconds. In April, it was 3 minutes and 39 seconds.
This is almost 15 times quicker than taxpayers who called HMRC. They had to wait about 21 minutes on average in March, reports The Telegraph.
Former State Minister Tom Pursglove showed that the Universal Credit helpline got over a million calls each month last spring. There were 1,345,024 calls in March 2023 and 1,213,815 in April 2023.
This is about half the number of calls the tax office got. They received 2,930,718 calls in March and 2,498,964 in April.
But even though they called more frequently, taxpayers had to wait a lot longer. Recently, HMRC has been told off because its latest numbers showed that it didn’t answer nearly a million calls in January during the busiest time for self-assessment.
After this, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt asked HMRC to “pause” its plans to close phone lines for about six months.
Right now, HMRC is trying to make their customer service better. MPs have said it’s at an all-time low.
Last year, a special team was set up to handle the pile of letters and it had to say that workers answer fewer calls from home after it was found out that two in five workers at regional HMRC centres did not go into the office at all in the year to March.
Around 5.9 million people claimed Universal Credit in March last year, with the same amount claiming in April. It has now gone up to 6.5 million as of February 2024.
The Telegraph says The Department for Work and Pensions is yet to release the latest call figures for its Universal Credit helpline.
Former Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, said: “HMRC used to be extremely efficient, but it seems to have lost its way. The only major change that has happened is working from home. Working from home leads to idleness.”
HMRC said it “continues to encourage people to use online services”.
A spokesperson said: “It’s nonsensical to compare call wait times in this way, as there are around 6.4m Universal Credit claimants compared with around 35m people who pay income tax alone.”
“We continue to encourage people to use our highly-rated online services wherever possible, so they can get their queries resolved quickly and easily. This allows our expert advisers to focus on helping those who need one-to-one support, including the digitally excluded and the vulnerable.”
By April, the average wait was a record 23:49, nearly seven times longer than for benefit claimants. And now, HMRC has set a new record for itself, with average wait times exceeding 25 minutes for the first time in January 2024. This is happening while they’re reversing plans to shut down phone lines for the summer.
