The latest update from HMRC is set out below.

“Digital Taxpayer Support Services (DCSS) – Agent Forum (March 20) Update for VCG

Agent Forum (AF)

As at the end of March 2020 the Forum had over 773 (up 65) on February registered Agent subscribers, of 1229 users signed up to the old forum. The Agent Forum re-platforming has been live for seven months now and even though registrations have not reached the levels of its predecessor, participation and issues traffic are increasing During 2019/20 we have dealt with over 650 issues, across all Heads of Duty. The new ‘Knowledge Base’ feature is also increasingly popular and carries announcements and real time taxes information and supported a Self-Assessment 2018/19 EoY filing programme. To support agents through the COVID-19 crisis, we have established a dedicated panel to deal with related issues and publish guidance. We have in conjunction with our Issues Overview Group (IOG) stakeholder colleagues, developed procedures to identify high priority widespread issues to be taken forward for resolution with our internal technical specialist and communications partners. This will be implemented on the Agent Forum going into 2020/21. We continue building our internal HMRC Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) capability, formalising recruitment from across HMRC to improve the quality and timeliness of issue resolution responses and to focus on Agent Forum operations. Performance metrics carried forward from the previous platforms now include over 1750k views, 8500 posted messages on over 1600 current topics, all since July 2017; which are moderated daily with appropriate responses given, as determined by subject matter, related traffic generated, and referrals provided by line of business. For 20/21, we are reviewing what performance metrics are reported in future, as we better understand new functionality provided by the MS Dynamics platform.

The Digital Taxpayer Support Services (DCSS) Agent Team is staffed by a Service Manager and 2.5 FTE Moderators, who moderate and run the forum.”