Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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148. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of persons that are employed at the local property tax help line; the grade of these people employed; the nature of their contracts and if he will give details of the customer charter that applies to them. [21390/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the introduction of the Local Property Tax (LPT) represents a significant administrative challenge. It is the largest extension of the self-assessment system in the history of the State. As a new service that will have exceptional temporary pressures at particular stages of its initial implementation it is difficult to predict the level of contact that will arise during its introduction and, consequently, the resource required to handle queries from members of the public. Revenue considered a number of options for the provision of a phone call service to handle queries from members of the public. It was necessary to ensure that the introduction of LPT would not adversely affect Revenue’s capacity to deliver for the Exchequer in relation to their overall priority of maintaining and improving levels of compliance across the range of taxes and duties. Revenue decided to use a mix of existing staff, staff from the redeployment resource panel, Temporary Clerical Officers (TCOs) and external resources to deal with Local Property Tax.

At the end of April 2013, Revenue had a total of 80 full-time equivalent staff assigned to the Help Line, comprising 59 permanent staff and 21 TCOs. The permanent staff resource was filled through the internal redeployment of existing staff and the recruitment of some staff from the Public Service Resource panel. The permanent staff are made up of Assistant Principal, Higher Executive Officer, Executive Officer, Staff Officer and Clerical Officers grades.

Revenue is currently in the process of recruiting an additional 35 TCOs to support the LPT Helpline.

Following an open competitive tendering process, the contract for call services was awarded on the basis that the service provider would

1. Deliver information and assistance to taxpayers having difficulty understanding Local Property Tax (LPT) and completing their returns and making payments.

2. Assist taxpayers to navigate a new online system for filing returns and payments for LPT.

3. Escalate calls to a Revenue call service where taxpayer specific information is required to resolve the call.

4. Make outbound calls to taxpayers with information on their Property Tax queries where requested by Revenue to do so.

5. Provide telephony infrastructure and supports to allow direct transfer to Revenue.

6. Support services and resources including account management and quality control.

The contract also includes the following provisions:

- Private sector employers acting under a public service outsourcing contract will be required to comply with all statutory terms and conditions relating to the employment of people in Ireland, including any registered agreement or Employment Regulation Orders.

- As a matter of public policy, all public contracting authorities will make clear to tenderers their expectation that the statutory industrial relations procedures (LRC or Labour Court) will be utilised for dispute resolution, consistent with domestic and EU procurement law.

The service provider must meet Revenue customer service standards and the industry ISO standards. Revenue has provided training and training material to ensure that the standards are achieved. An Irish language service is provided. The necessary confidentiality and security procedures have been implemented.

Revenue’s customer service standards state that 100% of calls were answered within five minutes but also states that at peak periods it may take longer. Revenue is experiencing extremely high volumes of all calls in relation to the Local Property Tax at present. The Help-Line service is provided on a 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday basis in the normal course. During peak filing periods the service is provided from 8am to 8pm and may include Saturday.

The service commenced on 7 March 2013 and call volumes of 199,834 were handled up to 30 April 2013. The external service delivery of peak call handling in respect of the LPT provides a flexible, scalable response to an unpredictable demand. Up until the end of April 2013 the number of staff provided by the service provider ranged from 40 up to 193.