HMRC responds to Treasury Committee on recent customer service outage

• Treasury

Following an announcement that HMRC had shut phone lines and online services, the Committee requested details on the nature of the issue and the number of customers affected. HMRC confirms in today’s correspondence that taxpayers experienced issues between Thursday 1 and Monday 5 December.

In the response, HMRC outlines that they would expect to have handled 99,000 customer calls during the outage period. Phonelines were shut due to an issue caused by an IT change implemented on Wednesday 30 November.

Chair's comments

Commenting on the correspondence, Harriett Baldwin MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, said:

 “It’s worrying to hear 99,000 taxpayer calls were potentially missed during this outage. I am especially concerned that crucial income tax, customs and telephony systems appear so vulnerable. HMRC must investigate what went wrong here, and report back to us on what lessons can be learned as soon as possible.”

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
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