HMRC had to do 35 million tax returns on paper due to poor IT

As a consequence of a delay in system delivery – which the audit partly puts down to poor contract management by the taxman with a key supplier - during 2008-09 the number of cases which obliged civil servants to resort to manual processing more than doubled – from 16.5 million in 2007-08 to 35 million.

 

Meanwhile the number of complaints about the department's online services also went up by over 100%, from 514 in 2007-08 to 1,443 in 2008-09 and only 57% of all attempts to call helplines completed in the year in question. Its report also finds HMRC's overall IT delivery “uneven” in the same timeframe, despite significant budget having been thrown at the problem.

The Committee restrains itself to merely call “surprising” HMRC's own boast in its annual report therefore that its use of IT had been "hailed as a shining example of how to use technology to take government services to a new level".

 

"Noting a 7% increase in total recorded customer complaints, we urge HMRC to reflect on whether customer experiences of HMRC are yet improving as much as their summary of 'strong progress' implies... Performance at HMRC remains mixed with considerable room for improvement and considerable challenges remain to be overcome if HMRC is to achieve this improvement," the report concludes. 

 

To its credit HMRC has high hopes for the Aspire framework for dealing with suppliers that it is still adamant will significantly reduce costs for the department over the coming years, according to its chief executive Lesley Strathie.

 

In its conclusion the report says that the future performance of HMRC will be highly dependent on improvements to its IT systems. "We will continue to monitor progress of its IT up-grading progress, including the new Aspire contract," it warns.