On 2nd October, HMRC officially rolled out a number of changes to its Agent Dedicated Line (ADL), including:
- Dropping its target call waiting time of 10 minutes
- Rerouting PAYE queries for individuals to the main, public helplines
- Providing information on potential call waiting times at the start of each call.
HMRC has made these changes as demand on its services is currently exceeding what it can supply with its resources at present.
We have been receiving negative feedback from our members about the ADL for the last two years. They tell us that they are already only using the line where absolutely necessary and they will be disappointed in this further erosion of services.
The previous target waiting time of 10 minutes was exceeded so often that some may have been surprised to learn there was a target at all. In fact, it was introduced last year as an attempt by HMRC to improve performance following COVID-19. However, it placed a lot of pressure on them, and previous attempts to meet the target led to calls to the ADL being limited between April and June 2023 to ‘complex’ matters. This brought its own challenges, with agents and HMRC call staff debating whether queries were considered difficult enough to be resolved on the ADL.
The new call-waiting information is a small positive, giving some indication of how long a caller must hold before an HMRC representative answers, but it will be based on wait times from the previous day, rather than live information.
PAYE diversions
As yet, it’s too early to tell what impact the changes to PAYE queries will have. HMRC is keen for agents to use digital alternatives for these queries, but these are limited and not always accessible to agents.
The Income Record Viewer (IRV) was opened up last year to enable agents to check their clients pay and tax details, employment history and tax codes for the current tax year and previous four tax years. This service can provide a lot of information, including taxable benefits and state pension details – but only to digitally authorised agents. Existing 64-8 relationships are not considered sufficient, and agents will need to complete a digital handshake with each client before they can access their information. Many agents report to us that they are not using the IRV as it’s simply too time consuming and costly for them to get clients through the digital handshake process.
Another common reason for calling the ADL is to amend PAYE codes. While individuals can make an online request to change their code via their Personal Tax Account (PTA), there is no equivalent functionality for agents.
That said, we recently learned that there is a potential online option for agents to request PAYE code changes, in the form of the PAYE coding notice query form. But we are still waiting for guidance from HMRC on when agents can use this form. We believe it may be limited to in-year changes only – if so, it won’t help during January to March when most PAYE codes are issued for the coming year. We also don’t know what the potential processing times are, meaning that for urgent changes that have a serious impact on a client’s take home pay, agents will still want to call HMRC.
Progress chasing
Finally, HMRC is keen that agents do not use the ADL for progress chasing, but instead refer to HMRC’s Where’s My Reply service and the HMRC dashboard to see when their correspondence will be dealt with.
While we agree that agents should be checking when they can expect a reply before calling HMRC, once the expected processing time has elapsed, we don’t think that agents should be prevented from calling HMRC to ask what is going on. Post can be misallocated or misplaced very easily, and agents – and their clients – need to know that HMRC has received their correspondence and when it might be dealt with.
A vital service
Association for Taxation Technicians (ATT) members tell us that the ADL is a vital service, a point we (and others) have made repeatedly to HMRC in our ongoing discussions about the service. We understand too that HMRC resources are limited, and they can only do so much with what they have.
The key to untangling this knot lies in rapid and effective expansion of online services to agents. Agents tell us that they would be happy to move from telephone to digital services – if the services existed – provided that a more user friendly route than the current digital handshake can be found.