1.  The Department answers 72% of telephone calls within 20 seconds compared with a general industry benchmark of 80%. The Department's performance affects around 5 million people a year who contact the Department by telephone about their personal tax affairs. The Department should aspire to be an industry leader, aiming to match the average standards achieved by other organisations and then to achieve those of the top-performing organisations industry-wide.

2.  The Department's target to answer at least 90% of telephone callers within a day is not demanding, nor in line with industry benchmarks. To measure its performance and set targets it should introduce recognised industry benchmarks such as the average time to answer and the percentage of calls answered within 20 seconds.

3.  Telephone callers sometimes receive incorrect or incomplete advice because they are not referred to staff with appropriate knowledge. The Department plans to introduce mystery shopping which, together with its quality monitoring, should enable it to track the handling of the more complex enquiries. It should use the results to identify training needs and develop its guidance on referring calls, as well as assess the numbers and expertise of staff needed to match the changing volume and patterns of enquiries.

4.  The Department's website is not user friendly and falls short of the standards achieved by tax administrations in other countries. It should improve accessibility with more effective search engine and navigation tools, including last-modified dates on webpages, and by meeting Cabinet Office guidelines on accessibility for groups such as blind and partially sighted users. It should not wait for the Direct.gov website to become available in 2011 as the main web channel for citizens before carrying out these improvements.

5.  The Income Tax Self Assessment return is the only personal tax form which can be filed online and the Department offers very restricted facilities for people to contact it by email. Expanding its online services would offer greater choice to the public and could save the Department over £100 million. It should increase the number of forms which can be completed online and expand its use of email contact, trialling new services to ensure a reliable and good quality service. In doing this, it must continue to offer high quality telephone, post and face-to-face services for those who prefer not to use online services.

6.  Many people have to contact the Department to obtain information which should be readily available on its website in printed guidance or in letters. The Department should reduce avoidable contact by providing sufficient explanatory information on forms, guidance and letters, such as examples of calculations and clear explanations about why tax is due, as well as by keeping its automatically-generated letters and forms up to date and relevant to people's needs.

7.  Only 10% of the Department's forms advertise the availability of documents in alternative formats for blind and partially sighted people, special telephone numbers for people who are hard of hearing and translation services. The Department should advertise these services more widely by including details on all forms and guidance and on its website. The Department should also provide facilities for people who are hard of hearing and wheelchair access at all enquiry centres.

8.  The Department does not systematically assess the accuracy and completeness of advice given in face-to-face contact at enquiry centres, and these centres do not always tell visitors about alternative formats or translation services. Building on the National Audit Office's market research, the Department should use mystery shopping to track how well it meets the needs of different groups of people and to assess the quality of advice it provides through its enquiry centres.

9.  In a sample of commonly used guidance leaflets, half required a reading age higher than the national average. The guidance accompanying the Department's forms is lengthy and dense, making it difficult to understand. The Department should shorten the supplementary guidance for its forms, and make more use of plain language and worked examples, so that the information is easier to read and understand. Reducing the volume of guidance would also help the Department meet its sustainability commitments to reduce paper consumption.

10.  The Department has estimated that the level of underpayments on Self Assessed Income Tax was £2.8 billion in 2001-02, of which around £330 million may have been due to unintentional mistakes by taxpayers. It has not estimated the amount of tax overpaid. The Department should set a timetable for producing its first estimate of overpayments. It should also identify the main reasons why taxpayers are making mistakes and publicise common errors to reduce the levels of underpayments and overpayments.