HMRC performance slips further as ministers target working from home

The tax man is failing to answer more letters on time after the pandemic, figures show, as it emerged that up to three quarters of civil servants are still working from home.

HMRC responded to around 52pc of correspondence within 15 days of receipt in February this year, including mail and online forms. In April 2020, HMRC split these two out separately, and answered 88pc of iForms within 7 days and 79.8pc of post within 15 days of receipt. 

Overall customer satisfaction with HMRC was also down, slipping from 84pc in April 2020 to 81.5pc in February this year.

Civil servants are facing growing pressure to return to their desks, with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for government efficiency, this week writing to all secretaries of state to urge them to send a "clear message" to staff to help get taxpayer-funded offices back to full capacity.

Other Whitehall departments have also seen a dip in the speed they process requests from the public since staff switched to remote working.

Figures for the Department for Work & Pensions showed it was taking longer for officials to process benefits claims, with people waiting an average of 22 weeks from registering their claim to having a decision being made.

In January 2020, this took an average of 19 weeks. The Department for Work and Pensions was shown to have the second lowest proportion of workers coming into the office out of all the government departments in a table sent around by Mr Rees-Mogg this week, only after the Department for Education.

Around 27pc of its staff came into the office during the week beginning April 4. At HMRC, around 33pc of staff are in the office. Other departments have a significantly higher proportion of workers coming in, such as the Department for International Trade where 73pc of staff are in the office.

Mr Rees-Mogg, in his letter to ministers, said: "Now that we are learning to live with Covid and have lifted all legal restrictions in England, we must continue to accelerate the return of civil servants to office buildings to realise the benefits of face-to face, collaborative working and the wider benefits for the economy. 

"To deliver this, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and I urge you to issue a clear message to civil servants in your department to ensure a rapid return to the office." 

HMRC and the DWP were contacted for comment.