Dear authority,
Here is the 10th in a series of weekly newsletters.
Please share with colleagues within your authority.
Kind regards
Lisa
LOCAL AUTHORITY COVID-19 BULLETIN ISSUE 10
Welcome to the 10th Local Authority COVID-19 Bulletin.
We envisage this being the final bulletin. As things hopefully return to more normal times we are looking at the potential of a quarterly newsletter to keep you informed. If you have any suggestions on regular features or content you would like to see please let us know.
Contacting the VOA
We continue to encourage customers to use our Contact Form . We have significantly built our capacity to manage customer contact electronically, and this enables us to direct queries to the relevant team as quickly as possible.
We have reopened a limited telephone service between 10am-2pm, Monday to Friday. Please support us by continuing to direct customers to our Contact Form and ensuring this service is available for customers who need it most, including those who cannot use our Contact Form or find the information online.
Thank you for working with us and also for handling any calls our shared customers have made over the last few months.
Inspections
We are restarting property inspections in agreement with ratepayers, where it is safe to do so, and we cannot gather the information we need electronically. We will contact customers beforehand to run through a risk assessment and ensure the inspection is carried out as safely as possible for our customers and the inspector. We will follow social distancing guidelines and other safety measures throughout the appointment. A leaflet is attached with further information on this.
We continue to prioritise hardship and COVID-19 cases, clearing them as quickly as we can. We are clearing 96% of reports within 90 working days. The remaining 4% are largely ones where we need to inspect, these being either complicated cases or ones where we have been unable to contact the ratepayer. Wherever possible we have tried to progress cases by asking for any additional information or plans that might help us resolve the case. In instances where you have any additional information, contact details or plans, which you didn't originally provide to us with the reports, please could these details be sent to baenquiries@voa.gov.uk with the subject heading:
'COVID 19 - Additional Info – BA e.g. 2515 - Report Number x-address in question'
VOA email addresses
We wanted to update you on changes to the email addresses you currently use to contact the VOA. From this week ‘.gsi’ has been removed from our email addresses. Staff email addresses and our IT Service Desk email address will change to reflect this over the coming months. A mail redirection will be in place but you should begin to use the email addresses below immediately. Our updated email addresses for authorities are as follows:
baenquiries@voa.gov.uk – general BA enquiries
barsubmissionstandards@voa.gov.uk – supporting information for your reports
csc.durham.ndr@voa.gov.uk – NDR reports (via email includes spreadsheets)
ct.registration@voa.gov.uk – CT reports (via email includes spreadsheets)
bars@voa.gov.uk – support in using the digital BARs Service
NSOhelpdesk@voa.gov.uk – Rent referral requests
Ratesretention@voa.gov.uk – your Local Authority Relationship Managers are available and can be contacted as usual at this address
Local Authority Engagement Team
7 August 2020
Lisa Rawson|Local Authority Engagement Team|Strategy, Policy and Customer Group|Valuation Office Agency (VOA)
03000 500 239 ratesretention@voa.gsi.gov.uk
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