Complaints group says HMRC must do better!
Happy 25th birthday to the Adjudicator's Office, which has just released its annual report. First, what is it? Well, it deals with complaints against HMRC. Or as the report puts it: "We give HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) the opportunity to learn lessons and make improvements."
The AO, which is run by the adjudicator Helen Megarry, also says it does this:
- Resolves complaints that come to us by providing an accessible and flexible service and making fair and impartial decisions.
- Supports and encourages effective resolution throughout the complaint handling process.
- Uses insight and expertise to support the departments to learn from complaints and improve services to customers.
Helen says, “There are signs of continued focus on improving complaint handling in the department. However, in practice the benefits and principles of good
complaint handling and learning are not fully understood throughout either organisation.
"This is apparent in the way in which individual complaints are handled. Although there are business areas demonstrating consistent improvement and evidence of good practice, more needs to be done to consolidate that across the board.
"Anyone accessing any part of the complaint process should be able to expect a similar level of service, focused on putting things right when they have gone wrong. That is not currently always the case.”
She adds: “We will continue to support and work with the department to identify and make improvement. I encourage them to continue to invest in sustainable improvements to complaint handling to access the full benefit of listening to their customers’ feedback to improve service.”
In a nice article about the AO, Jennifer Adams, AccountingWEB consulting editor asks: "Do accountants complain about HMRC's service enough?"
Processes reviewed
Jennifer points out: "The department costs £2,844,394 a year to run with only 60 staff (an increase on 56 in 2016/17). There is clearly a need for an independent AO, not least if their recommendations result in amendment or review of HMRC procedure. However, although the office does get results in getting HMRC processes at least reviewed, it must be difficult to have a large impact with the small number of employees."
The AO report looks very nice and make all the right noises, rapping HMRC on the knuckles where necessary and dishing out plenty of 'positives', too. The thing is, when you type the AO name into Google, let's just say coverage of the organisation is 'somewhat limited'.
Someone buy them a trumpet for their next birthday, perhaps... Meanwhile, I will be returning to the report in an effort to redress the balance slightly.
