Performance of services
2.6 The Aspire contract contains a large number of performance measures. In January 2014 there were 554 targets, of which 159 (29 per cent) were subject to a service credit or penalty regime.14 Sixty per cent of these targets measure the availability of ICT systems. None of the targets, however, measure the contribution to HMRC business outcomes (Figure 3).
2.7 HMRC has a number of measures that it has used since 2007-08 to track overall service performance. Two key measures which have shown substantial improvement since 2007-08 are (Figure 4 overleaf):
• working minutes lost annually per full-time equivalent HMRC staff member due to ICT not being available. The working minutes lost fell from 2,736 in 2007-08 to 387 in 2013-14; and
• high-priority incidents affecting the availability or performance of ICT hardware or software. In 2007-08, there were 397 high-priority incidents falling to 105 in 2013-14.
| Figure 3 | ||||||||
| Type of measure | Number of targets subject to service credits | Number of targets not subject to service credits | Total number of targets | Number of targets as percentage of total (%) | ||||
| Availability of ICT systems | 108 |
| 227 |
| 335 |
| 60 |
|
| Completeness of automated data capture and change processes | 32 |
| 99 |
| 131 |
| 24 |
|
| Timeliness of repairs to ICT systems and automated processing | 8 |
| 53 |
| 61 |
| 11 |
|
| Responsiveness of ICT systems to user input | 8 |
| 15 |
| 23 |
| 4 |
|
| Accuracy of data processing | 3 |
| 1 |
| 4 |
| 1 |
|
| Total number of measures | 159 |
| 395 |
| 554 |
| 100 |
|
| Source: National Audit Office analysis of HM Revenue & Customs' data | ||||||||
| Figure 4 These indicators show a substantial improvement since April 2007 Minutes lost per FTE per annum
High-priority incidents
Notes 1 High-priority incidents include events such as more than 499 users not being able to access a service or slower processing speeds affecting more than 5,000 users. 2 A composite measure of service unavailability began in 2007-08. Source: HM Revenue & Customs |
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14 Service credits are amounts credited or paid directly to the customer in the event of an un-excused service failure.