Parliament’s spending watchdog has accused HM Revenue & Customs of deliberately running down its phone services to force people to go online after finding the average call waiting time has passed 23 minutes – almost double the figure of two years earlier.
With people across the country working to finish their self-assessment return before the 31 January deadline, the public accounts committee (PAC) said it was “concerned that HMRC has degraded its own phone services” in the hope that taxpayers choose other ways to get in touch.
