Valuation Office Agency
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The Valuation Office Agency is a government body in the United Kingdom. It is an Executive Agency of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (and therefore of HM Treasury).
The Agency values properties for the purpose of Council Tax and for non-domestic rates in England and Wales (in Scotland this function is performed by the Scottish Assessors).
This work is undertaken on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government in England, and the Welsh Assembly Government in Wales. It also provides additional valuation services to the UK Government and to the wider public sector. One of the main services is valuing property throughout Great Britain at the request of HMRC for the purpose of assessing taxes collected by HMRC. Other notable areas it may be requested to act in are Right to Buy Scheme disputes and for Compulsory Purchase Orders. Most of these additional services are via District Valuer Services, a business stream of the VOA. DVS bids for work in the public sector like any other private firm, and so does not necessarily act for any given government organisation.
The predecessors of the Valuation Office Agency were the separate Valuation Office organisations in England and Wales (established in 1910) and in Scotland (established in 1911). The Valuation Office Agency was created as a merger of these two and became a Next Steps Agency of the Inland Revenue on 30 September 1991.
The VOA employs 4,850 people (full time equivalent) in 86 offices. [1]
It is the largest single employer of Chartered Surveyors in the UK. [2]
The current Chief Executive is Andrew Hudson, appointed in June 2004.
The equivalent body to the VOA for Northern Ireland is the Valuation and Lands Agency. In Scotland it is the Scottish Assessors).
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[edit] Valuation Office 1910 to 2007
The Finance Act of 1910 introduced a new land tax on that part of the capital appreciation of a property which followed from the expenditure of public money on communal development such as roads or other public services.
In order to apply this tax it was necessary to value all property in the UK and the Inland Revenue set up the Valuation Office to carry out this task.
The VO soon began to receive requests from other Government Departments for valuation assistance a task which it continues to undertake today. It was this other government work that lead to the VO's retention after the 1910 land value tax was abolished in the 1920s.
During the following years the VO took on some major tasks such in 1931 which saw a further proposed tax on land values and from 1939 to 1945 when it valued property destroyed by enemy action in the UK during the Second World War.
In 1950 the role of the VO was expanded when it took over responsibility for the valuation of property in England and Wales for rating purposes. Prior to this year it had been the task of each local authority to compile and maintain its own rating list but this had lead to inconsistencies in valuations. When in 1948 a new system of Government equalisation grants to LAs was introduced uniformity in rating valuation was essential and this could only be provided by a central organisation such as the VO.
It was not feasible to absorb the extra rating staff and work into the 100 existing VO offices so a separate network of 268 new offices were opened with the majority of their staff being transferred from local authorities.
Each local office was headed by a District Valuer responsible for all of the rating and revenue work within the geographical responsibility of his office. There were regional offices each headed by a Superintending Valuer who was responsible for the general management of the District Valuers within his region and liaison between the local offices and the Chief Valuer's Office in London.
Over the years the number of offices has reduced as the rating and other functions of the VO were combined into so called "integrated" offices and the network was slimmed down as the number of local offices were closed and by 1996 there were only 93.
Staffing numbers have varied in accordance with the workload peaking in the years around the times of rating revaluations when it was necessary to increase staff to carry the revaluation and to settle appeals arising from it. So in 1965 there were around 7,000 compared to 2,600 prior to 1950. By 1994/5 there were 4,775 permanent staff.
In 1998 the VO underwent a large scale re-organisation which saw a large reduction in the size of the regional layer of management and the closure of Regional offices. The District Valuer post in the local office was abolished and there was a reorganisation of the local offices into 24 Groups each headed by a Group Valuation Officer. A number of regionally based Specialist Rating Units were set up to take over responsibility from the local offices for the more complex or higher value non-domestic rating assessments. As part of this re-organisation further offices were closed leaving a total of 85.
[edit] Revaluations
Since the VO took over responsibility for the rating system revaluations, when rateable values are updated, have taken place erratically. The first was due in 1952 but was postponed until 1956 where unusually the residential rateable assessments were based on 1939 values. The next due in 1961 was postponed until 1963 due to difficulties in valuing houses and the 1973 revaluation took place 5 years after it was originally scheduled.
The next revaluation should have been in 1982 but was again postponed until 1990. This revaluation was purely for commercial property as domestic rating had been abolished. Since then there has been a five yearly cycle of commercial revaluations with the next due in 2010.
In 1993 domestic rating returned in the form of the Council Tax where a residential property’s sale price, rather than it letting value, is the basis for assessment. It was intended to have a domestic revaluation in England in 2007 but following the domestic revaluation in Wales, where over a third of households saw a banding increase, it was decided to postpone the revaluation of England. No date has been set when this revaluation will take place.
[edit] VOA 2008 to 2011
[edit] The Rent Service
The Rent Service (TRS) is a government agency providing a rental valuation service to local authorities in England supplying them with a range of valuations to assist them in settling claims for housing benefit from claimants living in privately rented housing. In addition valuations are provided for landlords or tenants for fair rent registrations.
The Government's Housing Benefit reform plans will see the introduction of a new Local Housing Allowance for new claimants from April 2008 which will have a significant impact on the Rent Service. During 2008-9 it is expected that its workload will reduce by approximately 40% and by 2011 will be around 75% lower than the level in 2007-8.
In view of this it was decided to transfer the residual functions of the The Rent Service from the Department of Work and Pensions to the Valuation Office Agency on 1 April 2009.
[edit] Budget Cuts
On the 6th November 2007 the chief executive, Andrew Hudson, announced to staff a series of spending cuts required as a consequence of the Government Funding plans announced the previous month which will reduce the VOA's budget by 5% in real terms for the next three years.
The cuts would be made in two main areas accommodation and staffing.
Under accommodation the VOA will seek to reduce the office space it occupies by some 35%. This will be achieved by the relocation of the VOA's headquarters in London to other existing VOA offices nearby and the closure of its offices in Chester, Durham, Harrogate, Kidderminster, Newport and Stockport. In 2009 a further five offices will be considered for closure. Remaining offices will be downsized where possible or be considered for relocation to cheaper buildings. The VOA will also seek to increase the number of staff who work from home.
Under staffing the current 4,100 staff would be reduced to 3,500 by 2011 principally by not replacing those staff who leave or retire.
[edit] References
- ^ [ http://www.voa.gov.uk/publications/annual_report_2005-06/Annual_Report_2005-06.pdf] Valuation Office Agency Annual Report 2005/2006, figure is at March 2006
- ^ [ http://www.voa.gov.uk/publications/framework_doc/voa-framework-review-2005.pdf] Report of the 2005 Review of the Valuation Office Agency
[edit] External links
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