VOA Check, challenge briefing

Business rates

The VOA’s check and challenge service (2017 rateable values): support material

This pack contains material to provide information to colleagues in local authorities in relation to the VOA’s check and challenge service.

Background on Check, Challenge, Appeal (CCA)

The VOA’s check and challenge service launches on 1 April 2017, in support of the Government’s aims to reform the rating appeal system under the heading of CCA.  The regulations that underpin this were laid in Parliament on 17 March 2017.

The VOA’s check and challenge service  is designed to get necessary changes made sooner, without there being an automatic need for an appeal, saving this route for those complex cases that most need it.  The aim is to narrow down the issues at each stage.

Check and challenge will give ratepayers more certainty about the basis of their rateable value by allowing them to initiate a check and confirm or update the details of their property.  Following a check, if they have reason to believe that their valuation is wrong, they will be able to submit a challenge, and provide supporting evidence.

We will be making this service increasingly digital over time, in line with customer expectations to interact with us online, and expect to launch functionality in phases from 1 April 2017 through to late 2018.

We would appreciate your support in guiding people towards this service, both from your own website and when dealing with calls. The short web address to provide is www.gov.uk/voa/valuation.

How the VOA’s check and challenge service will affect local authorities

• We will provide local authorities with summary details about challenge cases.  This will be on a monthly basis.

• The regulations also enable for relevant authorities to receive copies of challenge decision notices. This is subject to a relevant authority serving notice on the VO.  The relevant authority must identify the class of challenge (proposal) or hereditament that it wishes to receive copies of notices in relation to. Only decision notices in relation to challenges received ‎against that class specified will be provided. 

• We will be enabled to provide additional, potentially sensitive, information via the new statutory gateway established through the Enterprise Act 2016. This will ensure that the information provided is subject to additional safeguards built into the gateway, for example around the potential for any onward disclosure. This information will be available to those local authorities who have signed an Information Sharing Protocol (ISP) and an Information Supply Agreement (ISA).  If you would like to get one of these put in place, please speak to your Local Authority Relationship Manager or visit www.voa.gov.uk/info4LAs.

• We will work with local government to establish specifically what additional information will be available through the statutory gateway.  Initially it is likely to include information on checks made and, upon request, copies of certain challenges. We will look to share information where it is permitted through the legislation and is considered reasonable and proportionate.

• The process for local authorities to provide reports to us has not changed. However we are encouraging local authorities to use our new digital service to submit these reports. Any authorities interested in this new service can contact their Local Authority Relationship Manager.

• Local authorities can also provide us with supporting evidence about a challenge case; this evidence will be shared with the ratepayer or their agent, or any other ‘interested parties’ (IP). Local authorities can supply this information by email to ccaservice@voa.gsi.gov.uk. The following details must be included in the email:

• BA number
• Address of property
• Case number from BA MI data report (summary report)

We will be providing further details of this process to local authorities shortly through our Local Authority Relationship Managers.

Recommended online content

We want our shared customers to easily find their way through the GOV.UK landscape to the information we publish on GOV.UK. We expect some ratepayers to seek information on their council’s website rather than ours. For this reason we’ve developed this guidance on current terminology and phrases. By providing straight-forward and consistent information across all sites, ratepayers will be reassured and contact managed more effectively hopefully reducing call burdens for yourselves.

We strongly recommend reviewing the content you publish online as close to 1 April as possible – the content below replicates what we provided in advance of the draft list being published in September 2016.

The following table shows the most common topics local authorities cover on business rates pages, based on sampling a wide range of webpages, and our recommended phrasing.