Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of HMRC's (a) average telephone response time targets and (b) operating phone hours; and what information his Department holds on average response times from first contact to query resolution for those contacting HMRC across all communication methods.

HMRC targets are agreed with HM Treasury and are then used by HMRC to allocate resources appropriately across the department.

Information in the form requested is not readily available and could only be obtained, compiled, and collated at a disproportionate cost.

However, HMRC publish monthly and quarterly performance data on GOV.UK, available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports and here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates.