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Unbelievably, in 2005-06 (to 31 December 2005) 63 million calls to HMRC call centres encountered an engaged tone, while only 42 million calls resulted in the caller speaking to an adviser. Another 3.3 million calls were ended before the caller spoke to an adviser. These statistics were given by Dawn Primarolo in response to a written question. The corresponding figures for 2004-05 and 2003-04 were 48.7 million and 35.3 million calls handled, 2.7 million and 6.1 million calls received but abandoned and 31 million and 25.4 million calls encountering an engaged tone.
These figures do bear out Richard Curtis' experience in 'Are you being served?', Taxation, 26 January 2006, page 405 and indeed HMRC employees' experience; see 'Happy bunnies', Taxation, 16 March 2006, page 603.
