HM Revenue & Customs has denied that working from home has led to it missing performance targets.
New figures show 95% of HMRC staff work remotely at least one day a week. This includes working from home and at other “non-office” locations.
The figure is higher than during the first national lockdown in 2020, which was 92%, and far higher than the 35% registered in 2019.
Performance reports from HMRC show that in June the department answered 70% of telephone calls, an improvement from April when only 54% were answered.
Transparency data for July, released last week, shows HMRC’s London office was at just 36% occupancy at the end of July — while the nearby Ministry of Defence was at 72% the same week.
An HMRC spokesman said: “There is no link between our customer service performance and working from home. All our staff are held to the same standards, whether they are working from an HMRC building or from home.”
