HMRC’s work has been at the centre of the government’s response to COVID-19. Whether that’s by administering the support schemes, changing our operational approach or through more than 80 other temporary policy changes. Through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, we have supported millions of people. We have a dedicated GOV.UK page with more statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, Eat Out to Help Out and the VAT payments deferral scheme. HMRC’s priority in administering the support schemes was to get money to the people who need it as quickly as possible. For the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, customers went from making a claim to having the money in their accounts in 6 working days. While doing this, we needed to protect the schemes against abuse from organised criminal attacks, inflated claims and other non-compliance. We designed these schemes in a way that reduced the likelihood of mistakes happening, and removed opportunities for fraud. Our data and risking experts checked claims for signs of criminal activity and blocked the suspicious claims. This saw us block nearly 49,000 claims before they could be paid out. Where honest mistakes happen, we’ve helped customers put it right, but are taking tougher action on deliberate fraudulent behaviour. Our analysts are using multiple data sources to quickly identify discrepancies. We are seeing clear patterns that make fraud easier to spot. In March 2021, the government announced it was investing £100 million to expand the scope of our compliance work. The Taxpayer Protection Taskforce will see us commit more than 1,200 people to recovering money paid out to incorrect and fraudulent claims. We have will open more than 30,000 one-to-one enquiries into COVID support scheme claims and we expect the taskforce to recover £1 billion over the next 2 years. We continue to encourage businesses and individuals to come forward and self-correct if they have made a mistake in their claim. Where people have made an honest mistake, we want to help people correct them. No one who has tried to do the right thing but made an honest mistake has any need to be concerned, as long as they work with us to put it right. Where customers don’t take the opportunity to correct and don’t respond to our prompts, we will carry out investigations into their affairs. As well as these support schemes, we implemented more than 80 other temporary policy changes or clarifications to respond to the impact of COVID-19, including letting taxpayers defer payments of Income Tax and VAT. As the situation in the country evolves, we are reviewing which measures are still needed, which are no longer necessary and which we should keep as a permanent improvement to the way we operate the tax system. Providing this support has been resource intensive and this has had some implications for our day-to-day operation. We have strived to maintain our levels of customer service, and customer satisfaction has remained high; however, we have had to ask for our customers’ ongoing patience while waiting to get through to our tax helplines. The quickest way to contact us is through our digital channels: customers can use their personal or business tax account, the HMRC App, or webchat. In 2020 to 2021, around 85% of those who used our digital services were satisfied. See more information about how we have performed against our customer service targets.