…and another one
June 24, 2013I wonder how many MPs are planning on demonstrating their constituency credentials by asking about the closure of their HMRC enquiry centre? Here’s another one, from Penny Mordaunt, a conservative from Portsmouth North, and again the figures are interesting:
Number 2008-09 22,988 2009-10 21,855 2010-11 20,987 2011-12 20,973 2012-13 16,767
Two things interest me about this. First, the precipitate fall in numbers of users of the service in the past year. Do we think that might have any connection with the service’s concern with being “digital first” and the requirement to tell people to pick up the phone and speak to a distant call centre, rather than speak to the actual human being in front of them?
And, second, if you go to the HMRC page here and download the spreadsheet that seems to be the only way of finding out the opening hours of the enquiry centres, you’ll see that there are, in fact, TWO enquiry centres listed for Portsmouth, Portsmouth Lynx and Portsmouth Wingfield. I’m rather curious as to why the Minister only reported on Lynx House and completely omitted to mention Wingfield. But you can imagine why numbers might be problematic at Wingfield, when it’s only open two days a week.
Those figures don’t look so bad to me, actually.
tiintax 
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