One worker, who said they were hired at HMRC’s office in Nottingham without speaking to a person, said: “You’d expect the job interview to be with a human, but they were all pre-recorded questions. It was so daft and the questions themselves were waffle.”
He also said that staff at the office were demoralised, adding: “In the first couple of weeks it became very clear there were a lot of malingerers in HMRC who chat and eat snacks at their desks all day. In the office there are sweets and cakes and crisps everywhere you look.
“I pay tax and want to know that every penny handed over to the Government is being used appropriately, but it offends me to see how dysfunctional it is at HMRC and how idle some staff are.”
Earlier this year, HMRC was forced to abandon plans to close phone lines for six months every summer after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt intervened. It has since been given an additional £51m funding to help staff answer more calls.
Spending watchdog the National Audit Office has previously said that out of a sample of tax queries made to HMRC, half required the help of an adviser and could not be solved simply by speaking with a robot.
But even in instances where taxpayers speak to advisers, HMRC’s own audits from 2023-24 found they had not fully complied with procedures in a third of sampled telephone and correspondence.
The taxman has desperately been trying to digitise its services so more employees can focus on more complex tax cases, which have risen in volume as more people begin to pay taxes they never previously had to due to frozen thresholds.
To reduce call handling, the government department “deflected” nearly a third of calls online in the first 11 months of 2023-24 – up from a quarter the year before.
But of the callers who were deflected, only 28pc reported being satisfied with the service they had received.
An HMRC spokesman said: “As a large employer we have a number of options available to us in our interviewing and selection methods, including online pre-recorded, virtual and in person interviews. All pre-recorded videos are assessed by trained panellists who are HMRC employees.
“For our entry-level roles, the recruitment processes are automated to manage an increased number of applications and include the use of the online video tool.
“All customer service applicants complete online testing prior to interview and, if recruited, receive up to 10 weeks of comprehensive training and observation before answering calls, with ongoing support available from experienced colleagues.”