Online application process
27. We would expect HMRC to comply with its Customer Charter (the Charter) which tells us it will provide services that are designed around what the customer needs to do, and are accessible, easy and quick to use. We have also taken account of our Principles of Good Administration (our Principles) which expect public organisations to provide services that are easily accessible to their customers.
28. As such we have looked at the available evidence to see if there is any indication that HMRC have not complied with the relevant standards or guidance in respect to the online application system provided for customers.
29. Mrs T received invitations to apply for both grants and subsequently attempted to apply for each within the required deadlines. However on each occasion she tells us that the online system said she was not eligible and prevented her submitting the application. HMRC has no record of receiving an application from Miss L.
30. We have also considered action taken to address problems Miss T experienced and in particular, Mrs T’s contact with HMRC to seek further advice as to what to do next as she says she tried to call the helpline to resolve matters. However HMRC has no record of any contact or indeed any self-assessment notes showing contact from Mrs T or Miss L between April 2021 (the start date of applications for the fourth grant) and 30 September 2021 (the final date for applications for the fifth grant). Miss L has also been unable to provide us with any dates and there are no recordings or other documented records of these calls to tell us what advice she was given.
31. We cannot say why the online system prevented her making an application for the fourth and fifth grant and we have not seen any evidence of this being due an administrative failing on the part of HMRC. Nor have we seen evidence to suggest HMRC failed to respond to Mrs T and Miss L’s efforts to resolve any problems they came across in the application process. Therefore, we are persuaded HMRC met the requirements of the Charter and our Principles.
32. In making this decision we have also taken into account that Mrs T had already successfully submitted applications for the first three grants and also had the help of her accountant, Miss Bell when she attempted to make the fourth and fifth applications.
Appeal requests 33. Miss L tells us that she wrote to HMRC on behalf of Mrs T on several occasions and asked to appeal both the online decisions finding her ineligible for the SEISS fourth and fifth grants. She says that HMRC ‘approved’ both appeals and agreed to issue the payments.
34. In respect to the fourth grant, she says that HMRC also told Mrs T that it paid the grant into the incorrect bank account and would re-call the payment and reissue it. In respect to the fifth grant, she says that HMRC told her that Mrs T had not been eligible due to some errors on her 20/21 SATR and that since these had now been resolved it would be able to issue the payment.
35. Miss L has shown us copies of her letters to HMRC dated 20 September and 29 December 2021 and 22 April and 8 August 2022 which refer to all of the above and ask for both grants to be paid.
36. There is nothing in HMRC records showing it received an appeal request or appeal decision for either grant. The only available telephone recordings are from 19 April 2022 and the adviser confirms that HRMC have not received or sent any correspondence about an appeal for either grant. HMRC have confirmed it would send a SEISS appeal decision in writing if it was agreeing to pay a SEISS grant. Miss L has not provided evidence that HMRC wrote her any such letters, or any other correspondence relating to the incorrect bank account details or the incorrect information on the 20/21 SATR.
37. Our Principles expect public organisations to behave helpfully and deal with people promptly, within reasonable timescales. They should also do what they say they are going to do and if they make a commitment to do something, they should keep to it, or explain why they cannot.
38. The Charter says that when a customer gets in touch, HMRC will answer their questions and resolve things first time, or as quickly as it can and it will give customers accurate, consistent and clear information.
39. We have considered whether the available evidence tells us if HMRC has complied with the above guidance or standards since Miss L’s account suggests it has not carried out actions it has allegedly agreed to do.
40. Having reviewed the available evidence we have seen no evidence of maladministration on the part of HMRC. This is because although Miss L has shown us her letters to HMRC, we have not seen any evidence that HMRC received these letters or responded in the way she has described. In particular, we have not seen evidence that HMRC committed to pay the grants to Miss L.
41. We understand this is frustrating for Mrs T but in this case, we have seen no evidence to support her account of what happened or any indications of HMRC failings.
42. During our primary investigation Miss L told us she is concerned that the Mrs T’s yearly accounting period from 1 November to 31 October may have been responsible for HMRC not paying her the fourth and fifth loans.
43. We have explained above that HMRC have said that Mrs T did not qualify for either of the fourth or fifth SEISS grants is because there is no evidence that she made a claim within the required deadline. As HMRC has explained this to Miss L, its actions are in keeping with our Principles – providing clear, relevant and accurate information.
Complaint handling
44. Miss L has told us that after the online system found Mrs T not eligible for each grant, she made many attempts to contact HMRC to resolve the matter. Miss L has provided us with copies of the letters she wrote to HMRC.
45. We have asked HMRC for a record of correspondence from April 2020 to June 2023. It has told us there is only one call contact from Ms E dated 19 April 2022 and has provided a recording. We have discussed the content of this call in more detail below.
46. HMRC’s records do not show evidence of any other correspondence from Ms E prior to the letter dated 20 April 2022 which was received on 29 April 2022 and a subsequent entry of a complaint at tier one of the complaints system on 22 November 2022. There is a record of Ms E’s letter dated 14 March 2023 but no further action in regard to this complaint until 16 May 2023, when it was assigned to tier two of the complaints system, and subsequently the final decision dated 12 June 2023.
Delay in responding to complaint after 20 April 2022
47. We have looked at the delay in responding to the letter dated 20 April 2022. Following its receipt HMRC did not appear to take any action until over a year later on 16 May 2023.
48. This delay by HMRC is not in line with the HMRC charter which says if customer wishes to complain, HMRC will deal with the matter quickly and fairly. It also says that when a customer gets in touch, it will answer their questions and resolve things first time, or as quickly as it can.
49. The delay is also not in line with the UK Central Government complaint standards which expect public organisations to provide an open and honest answer as quickly as possibly considering the complexity of the issues.
50. We asked HMRC if there was any reason for the delay in responding to the letter dated 20 April 2022. It has explained that this letter was received on 29 April 2022 and placed in the incorrect Covid/Digital Mail Service queue and due to a backlog, which had built up due to COVID-19, it was not picked until HMRC received Mrs T’s subsequent letter dated 14 March 2023.
51. We consider here that the delay in responding to Mrs T’s complaint was not in line with relevant standards and guidance and resulted from an HMRC administrative error. We consider the delay and lack of contact was so significant that it was a service failing.
52. We have then considered the impact of this delay on Mrs T. We use our severity of injustice scale in order to determine the degree of impact on a complainant. This ensures that any recommendations we make are consistent and transparent for everyone who uses our service.
53. The scale contains six different levels of injustice which increase in severity. In this case we consider that the impact on Mrs T is at level one. This is because she has experienced annoyance, frustration, worry and inconvenience which has arisen from a single incidence of service failure. In making this decision we have taken into account that during this time Mrs T has also described experiencing significant stress and anxiety due to the non-payment of both grants and the resulting financial worry and impact on her business. We have explained why we do not consider HMRC to be responsible for the non-payment of the grants. Therefore we can only consider here the impact which results solely from the poor complaint handling.
54. We would normally consider an apology sufficient to put right any upset caused at level one and we are pleased to see here that HMRC have apologised for the poor customer service.
55. We also see it has agreed to an ex-gratia payment of £75 which is in line with HMRC: Complaints and Remedy Guidance: Financial Redress. This guidance tells us that HMRC will consider financial redress for worry and distress resulting from unreasonable delay. These payments are intended to be a token payment or a way of acknowledging that HMRC mistakes and delays have affected someone badly and are not akin to damages. The guidance further says that the amount of the payment will take into account the impact on the person and the gravity of the mistake and generally payments will range between £25 and £500 although the majority awarded are at the lower end of this range.
56. Given the impact on Mrs T which we have assessed to be at level 1, it appears here that HMRC’s decision is in line with its own guidance. As such we will take no further action.
Lack of response to letters prior to 20 April 2022
57. Miss L has provided us with copies of her letters to HMRC prior to 20 April 2022. However HMRC said it did not receive this correspondence. Although we know that Miss L’s letter of 20 April 2022 was incorrectly filed by HMRC initially, we have not seen any evidence to suggest that this happened with other letters or that there was any other administrative error which resulted these letters not reaching HMRC.
58. We acknowledge that it is problematic where one party provides evidence that they wrote letters but there is no evidence that they were received.. UK Central Government Complaint Standards explains that in order make a robust decision, we must be able to give a clear and balanced account of what happened based on established facts and compare this with what should have happened in order to identify indications of failings.
59. We understand that the lack of response from HMRC was frustrating for Miss L and Mrs T and we appreciate this is unsatisfactory but we simply have insufficient evidence to show us any indications of maladministrative failings on the part of HMRC.
Incorrect advice during telephone call dated 19 April 2022
60. HMRC have provided a recording of the telephone call dated 19 April 2022. During this call the HMRC adviser speaks to Ms E and Mrs T. They say that there is no record of an application for either the fourth or fifth grant or any appeal requests or decisions.
61. They also suggest to Mrs T that the reason she had been found ineligible for each grant was because she did not submit her 20/21 SATR until 19 April 2021 which was after the deadline of 2 March 2021.
62. This explanation was not correct since eligibility to SEISS required the applicant to submit their SATR for 19/20 rather than 20/21 by 2 March 2021 as set out in the Direction. Furthermore we know that the invitation to make an application was triggered by submission of the 19/20 SATR prior to this date and Mrs T received invitations to claim both grants. This suggests there was no problem with the date she filed her SATR.
63. Nonetheless our Principles of Good Administration (our Principles) expect public organisations to give people information and, if appropriate, advice that is clear, accurate, complete, relevant and timely. Likewise the HMRC Customer Charter (the Charter) says it will give customers accurate consistent and clear information. HMRC did not meet this standard on this aspect of Miss L’s complaint and it is therefore indication of a failing.
64. We have again looked at the impact of this failing on Mrs T.
65. We consider again that the impact on Mrs T would be at level one of our severity of injustice scale. In Miss L’s letter dated 20 April 2022, she refers to the advice given during the telephone call on the previous day and explains why she does not believe it to be correct. Therefore we can assume therefore that she will have explained to Mrs T that the advice given was wrong. Further, while the adviser gave incorrect information about the submission of SATRs, they also provided accurate information about the reason Miss Bell did not receive these grants – HMRC had no record of receiving an application.
66. Nonetheless we acknowledge that the adviser’s incorrect information would still have caused Mrs T some degree of frustration and upset. As above we have not taken into account the upset and distress Mrs T was experiencing due to the non-payment of the grants.
67. The AO has recommended a further payment of £75 to put right any upset caused by the misinformation. It appears here that the AO have made an appropriate decision in line with HMRC’s remedy guidance to acknowledge the impact at what we would consider to be level 1.
68. As above we would consider an apology to be sufficient to put right this level of upset. Given that the AO has also recommended a further payment of £75, we will not therefore take any further action here.
69. We understand that our decision may not be the outcome for which Miss L or Mrs T were hoping and we are sorry we have not been able to take a view in respect of all of the parts of their complaint. We hope our consideration will provide some reassurance as to the reasons for HMRC’s actions and decisions, and that Miss L finds our explanations helpful.