the institute’s revenues and enforcement conference report

INSIGHT

INSIDE: Housing exposed • Customer service • News & events • Data analysis • Viewpoint

August 2015 £6.50 www.irrv.net

ISSN

136

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05

The monthly journal of the Institute of Revenues, Rating & Valuation

John Roberts reports from Keele, as the great and the good in revenues and enforcement gathered once again to put their world to rights

The Institute’sRevenues and EnforcementConference report

Editor’s welcomeRegular items

John Roberts IRRV (Hons) is Managing Editor of the Institute’s magazines

The editorial team and myself sincerely hope that you’ve had the chance to take a well-earned break by the time you read our latest offering – or if not we hope that you have one planned. However, whether you have or not, we’re here to keep you up to date with the latest news and opinion from your chosen profession.

This month, our cover feature homes in on another successful IRRV event. Keele University once again played host, this time to the Revenues and Enforcement Conference, and we bring you highlights.Of course there’s no substitute for being there, but as ever, we’re on hand to ensure that you’re aware of the issues that our delegates were able to participate in. As ever, a key aspect of the event was the exhibition, and we are pleased to report that this edition also plays host to several of our commercial partners who continue to support these key events.

We are also pleased to introduce another new contributor, David Garnett, who reveals his expertise in the subject of housing policy. This continues our theme of providing material of interest to readers across the strands of our profession, and we look forward to further contributions from David in future issues.

Turning to our regular contributors, this edition includes articles from expert benefit commentators Phil Adlard and Geoff Fimister, and the welfare reform agenda is also the subject of Moira Hepworth’s Faculty Board feature, illustrating how our faculties keep on top of the fast-moving legislative change process.

As liability order costs grab the headlines, barrister Alan Murdie has spotted a lesser-known case which illustrates once again how local authorities need to take extreme care when entering the minefield of the courts to pursue the holy grail of high collection rates. This and much more – read on and enjoy!

“Welcome to the August edition of Insight.”

What’s in the next issue... • Jim McCafferty and friends preview

the Scottish Conference

• the IRRV and Critiqom present their business rate billing white paper

• the world of technology through the eyes of Simon Bailey.

A message from the Deputy Chief Executive.

Log in to ‘magazines’ in themember area of www.irrv.net to hear the message online.

Chief Executive’s notes 05

News and events 06

Wales Conference report 08

Education and membership 09

New examination syllabus 11

Daisy’s diary 12

From the archives 13

Faculty Board report 14

Benefits bulletin 15

Valuation matters 16

Credit notes 20

Back office processing 21

Collection & enforcement 22

Management 25

Data anaylsis 28

Customer service 29

Legal view 30

Doherty’s despatch 33

Viewpoint 34

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Follow us on Twitter David Magor on Twitter Gary Watson on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Presidents Blog

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©IRRV 2015. Reproduction in whole or in part of any article is prohibited without prior written consent. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent the views of theInstitute. Whilst all due care is taken regarding the accuracy of information, no responsibility can be accepted for errors. Any advice given does not constitute a legal opinion.

Cover story 18The Institute’s Revenues andEnforcement Conference reportJohn Roberts reports from Keele

Feature 26

Housing exposedDavid Garnett explores the changing role of today’s housing association

2 www.irrv.net • Forums • Conferences • Training Days • News • Online Training • Qualifications • Membership • Jobs • Council • Tel 0207 831 3505

IRRV INSIGHT

Managing Editor

John Roberts

Editorial Director

Lester Dinnie

Art Director

Don Tregartha

Designers

Clare Barker

Roddy Clenaghan

Copy Editor

Vicki Chastney

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IRRV

Chief Executive David Magor OBE IRRV (Hons) Northumberland House 5th Floor 303-306 High Holborn London WC1V 7JZ T 020 7831 3505 E [email protected] W www.irrv.net

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IRRV INSIGHT is produced by Tregartha Dinnie Ltd on behalf of the IRRV.

Unless otherwise indicated, copyright in this publication belongs to the IRRV.

August 2015 ISSN 1361-1305

Your IRRV Council:

IRRV PRESIDENT Kevin Stewart FIRRV MAAT MCMI

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Jim McCafferty IRRV (Hons)

David Chapman IRRV (Hons)

Phil Adlard Tech IRRV MlnstLM MCMI

John Clark FIRRV

Ian Ferguson IRRV (Hons)

Louise Freeth FIRRV

Richard Harbord MPhil CPFA FCCA IRRV (Hons) FIDP FBIM FRSA

Gordon Heath BSc IRRV (Hons)

Carla-Maria Heath BA IRRV (Hons)

Paul McDermott IRRV (Hons)

Maureen Neave Tech IRRV

Nick Rowe IRRV (Hons)

Alistair Townsend IRRV (Hons) MCMI

Alan Bronte FRICS IRRV (Hons)

Mary Hardman IRRV (Hons) FRICS MCMI

Kerry Macdermott IRRV (Hons)

Roger Messenger BSc (Est Man) FRICS FIRRV MCIArb REV

Bob Trahern IRRV (Hons)

HONORARY TREASURER Allan Traynor FCCA IRRV (Hons)

Robert Brown BSc FRICS FIRRV

Angela Storey Tech IRRV MCMI

JUNIOR VICE PRESIDENT

Follow us on Twitter David Magor on Twitter Gary Watson on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Presidents Blog

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David Magor OBE IRRV (Hons) is Chief Executive of the Institute

The CentreForum is an independent, liberal think tank seeking

to develop evidence-based policy solutions to the problems

facing Britain. In their report, ‘Moving beyond the mansion

tax’, they have put forward a series of ideas on developing and

modernising the council tax. Whilst the research reflects their

liberal aims and values, it does tend to be evidence-based

rather than the dogma delivered by similar bodies.

In the report they recommend, unsurprisingly, that proposals

for a mansion tax be dropped. Instead, they advocate the

establishment of a Royal Commission with the task of

considering the appropriate balance of taxes on property,

and the merits of moving partly or wholly to the taxation of

economic rent on land.

Interestingly it is their short term suggestions that are worthy

of consideration. They suggest that rather than introduce a new

property tax that fits uncomfortably alongside existing taxes,

the government should reform the council tax to make it a flat

rate tax on the value of domestic properties. They believe that:

• local authorities should be free to set their own rate

• all revenue on property values below £2 million should be

retained locally

• all revenue on property values above £2 million should be

pooled by all local authorities and redistributed among them

• central government funding to local authorities should be

reduced in line with the additional revenue raised locally.

The body also recommends that residents be permitted to

defer payment of their tax until their property changes hands

through sale or transfer and this should be guaranteed by

billing authorities placing a ‘charge on the land’ to cover both

the deferred tax and any interest. Local authorities should be

free to borrow against this asset to smooth revenue.

Needless to say, the government’s response to the report

repeated the normal Department for Communities and Local

Government mantra, saying that, “the government would

work with town halls to keep council tax down for residents,

and would continue to place a cap on increases that can

be implemented without a local referendum.” They further

stated that, “over the past five years, average council tax bills

in England have fallen by 11% in real terms, giving families

greater financial security, and this government will seek to

continue this trend by working with councillors to deliver

high quality and value for money services for the people

they serve.”

The reality is that the council tax needs a revaluation and a

programme of modernisation before it is beyond saving and

reports like the contribution from CentreForum attempt to

stimulate the debate.

Chief Executive’s notes

“They suggest that rather than introduce a new property tax that fits uncomfortably alongside existing taxes, the government should reform the council tax to make it a flat rate tax on the value of domestic properties.”

Yet another independent report warns that it would be wrong to forget the council tax, says David Magor

The council tax is alive and well and still generates interesting and thought provoking research, such as a recent report from the CentreForum.

5IRRV Membership Become a member of the largest professional institution operating in the field of revenues, benefits and valuation www.irrv.net

David Magor on Twitter

THE FINALISTS ARE:Revenues Team of the Year1 Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council

2 East Lothian Council

3 Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council

4 Southwark London Borough Council

5 Tewkesbury Borough Council

Excellence in Debt Management1 Agiliys Ltd, JBW Group and

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council

2 Liverpool City Council

3 SUMA

Excellence in Innovation (Single Organisation)1 City of Edinburgh Council

2 Lambeth London Borough Council

3 Marston Holdings (Marston)

4 Perth and Kinross Council

5 South Staffordshire Council

Benefits Team of the Year1 Angus Council

2 East Riding of Yorkshire Council

3 Southend on Sea Borough Council

4 Southwark London Borough Council

5 Tewkesbury Borough Council

Excellence in Innovation (Joint Organisations)1 Cofely and North Tyneside Council

2 EK Services

3 Fortunatus Housing Solutions

4 Milton Keynes Council and Milton Keynes

Service Partnership

5 Mouchel Business Services and

Middlesbrough Council

Excellence in Partnership Working1 EK Services

2 Glasgow City Council and CapacityGrid


Service Partnership

4 Northgate Public Services

Most Improved Team of the Year1 Angus Council

2 Comhairle nan Eilean Siar Council

3 Haringey London Borough Council

4 Newham London Borough Council

5 Oxford City Council

Excellence in Social Inclusion1 Lambeth London Borough Council


Service Partnership


4 Perth and Kinross Council

5 South Staffordshire Council

Excellence in Staff Development1 Mouchel Business Services

2 Marston Holdings (Marston)


4 Valuation Office Agency

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News and events

Latest news

Valuation Tribunal President steps downProfessor Graham Zellick steps down as President of the Valuation Tribunal on 12th August 2015. Professor Zellick was appointed by the Lord Chancellor as the first President and took up office on 1st January 2009.The Professor will continue with his

other judicial work as a member of the

Investigatory Powers Tribunal and, after a

break, intends to return to legal writing and

to participate in legal and constitutional

debates in a way that is not possible for the

holder of a salaried judicial post.

Insight wishes to take this opportunity

to offer

Professor

Zellick very

best wishes

for the

future.

A reet good do!President Kevin Stewart is photographed with Yorkshire and District President Vic Dockree as the pair take a break from the festivities at the recent Association dinner dance. ( Photo courtesy of Robert Brown)

Jane RatcliffeInsight readers will be saddened to hear that former Council member, conference speaker and magazine contributor Jane Ratcliffe died recently, following a long and brave battle with cancer. Friend and former colleague Tanya Bandekar provides this fitting tribute.I first got to know Jane when she came to

South Norfolk Council in the early 90s. Having

been used to calling my old boss ‘sir’, it was

a bit of a quandary for me, as I wasn’t sure I

could call her madam! It seemed disrespectful

to call her Jane... so I settled for Mrs Ratcliffe.

Jane was like a breath of fresh air. The

council was quite set in its ways, stuffy and

serious. Jane taught us to respect the customer

and to always put them first. Over the years

this became embedded in us and the council

gained respect for the way it engaged with

and involved the community. And I know I am

not alone in saying that the great ‘customer service ethos’ that Jane instilled in those who

worked for her allowed us to become better,

more tolerant and kinder people. Jane was also

a great listener, and a mentor for those who

needed it when things got tough.

However Jane was very ambitious, and her

sights had always been set on becoming a

Chief Executive – rare for someone coming up

through the revenues and benefits field. Jane

moved on to Colchester, then Redbridge and

finally to Great Yarmouth Borough Council,

when in 2013 she finally achieved her dream

role. She had great plans for the Borough,

and achieved many things in her time there,

working in so many deprived areas to make

a difference. But her time there was cut short

by illness, which she bore with great humility

and little anger. She set herself goals along the

way after her first diagnosis, but sadly couldn’t

achieve them all.

I remember her taking me out for a birthday

lunch the week before she fell ill, with no

signs of what was to come. We often went

out, chatted and put the world to right. I’m

going to miss those chats! Jane was my boss,

but she also became a great friend, and we

shared many happy times socialising, and our

many trips to Goa, which she loved. I have two

abiding memories from these trips which I will

share... although Jane will kill me!

The first one was after we had done our

usual shopping spree in Gatwick airport, wait-

ing for our flight, and Jane had bought a cro-

cheted sunhat to wear. We used to walk to the

end of the road that we stayed on to get a taxi,

and this particular day we got into Su’s taxi for

a trip. I know Su

well. As we got in,

he asked me who

it was that was

with me – was it

my mother?! I thought Jane was going to kill

him – there is less than two years between

us... and she didn’t wear the hat again!

The second time – well, you had to be there

really. Jane and I had been to a restaurant and

were a little bit merry. It was close by, so we

were walking home. In those days the ‘shops’ were little stalls made from bamboo cane and

string, with their wares hung up and on table

tops. I was one side of the road and Jane on the

other. When I looked up she was sat in a rope

chair that was strung up between two poles.

What Jane hadn’t realised was that the rope was

holding up the stall! In slow motion I turned

round and the whole shop was collapsing. The

shop owner came running out, waving at Jane

to get out of the chair, at which point the rope

snapped and she sat on the floor laughing!

I couldn’t move. I was laughing too much I

couldn’t even go and pick her up. Sorry, Jane!

Jane leaves behind her husband Bob, son

Jeremy and her grandchildren. She will be

greatly missed by those of us that had the

privilege to know her.

Tanya Bandekar

News of members Institute news

76 In order to continue receiving your online magazines don’t forget to keep your membership details up-to-date. Log on to www.irrv.net

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www.irrv.net • Forums • Conferences • Training Days • News • Online Training • Qualifications • Membership • Jobs • Council • Tel 0207 831 3505

KornerDear reader,I will be in the final months of my year as President by the time you read this article. It has been a year of wonderful highlights with so many memories, albeit with one massive tragic low, as you will recall. The warmth and support, though, that has been extended to me throughout this year has been incredible and something I’ll never ever forget – thank you so much! I really hope that I have inspired others to not only retain their membership of the Institute and support their local Association but also seek office on the Institute’s Council, and one day even to be National President themselves. If I have done this, it really will please me, as I continue to meet so many amazing and capable people.

I continue to be fully appreciative of the support of my current employer, Luton Borough Council. This is not only in respect of my role this year but also the Institute itself. For example, Luton has eleven members of staff currently undertaking their IRRV Level 3 Certificate exams, with more looking to do it next year. My toes and fingers are crossed, but to have a large number from my employing authority qualify in my Presidential year would be a huge personal legacy for me, highlighting the support from the

council and my colleagues. I would though like to take the opportunity

to wish all students who undertook their exams in June 2015 good luck – the results are due to released at 9.30am on Wednesday 26th August 2015 on the IRRV website. I then hope to see at least a few of you – the Diploma passes and the prize winners – in Telford at this year’s Annual Conference in October. As prize winners you may even get to go on stage with me to receive your prize!

The Association dinners across the country have all been very different this year but such enjoyable occasions for both my partner Liz and me. At the time of writing, I have just been to the Revenues and Enforcement Conference and the Welsh Conference. The events too have made me feel very welcome and I surprised many in the audience at Llandrindod Wells last week by trying to start and finish the opening presentation in Welsh! The bar has been set for next year’s President – my good friend Jim McCafferty – who I’m sure will do a great job himself with the chain when I hand over the reigns of power to him in Telford on the evening of 7th October 2015.

Yours, Kevin

It’s time to begin the ‘thank you process’, says Kevin Stewart, as the Presidential year starts to draw to a close

Check out Kevin’s blog on: http://irrv-president.blogspot.co.uk/

Kevi

n’s

President’s Blog

David Graaff joins JBW GroupRegular Insight contributor David Graaff has joined the executive board of key IRRV sponsor and exhibition partner JBW Group as Business Development Director.David joins JBW after having spent his

thirty year career working within public

service, both in authorities such as Waltham

Forest as an Assistant Director and as an

outsourced partner and consultant with

Agilisys. David will

be responsible for

governance, new

business strategy and

the delivery of the

sales, bid and marketing

functions of JBW. He

holds an MBA in supply

chain management from

the Lean Enterprise

Research Centre at the University of Wales

and is a member of both the IRRV and the

Chartered Institute of Purchasing.

IRRV PERFORMANCE AWARDS 2015

IRRVAnnual Conference,

Exhibition and Performance AwardsGala Dinner, Telford

6th – 8th October 2015Book now onwww.irrv.net

Education and membership

Michael Hopkins is Qualifications and Membership

Manager with the IRRV. Contact him on

[email protected] or 020 7691 8978

New members

We are pleased to announce that the IRRV

has entered into a new initiative with the

Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA). CIPFA is the

professional accountancy body for public

finance, with members and students working

in the finance function in governments,

including local government, around the

world. CIPFA has agreed to offer Affiliate membership to current and experienced

Honours and Fellow members of IRRV. The

benefits of CIPFA membership include:

• development and support services,

including Management Direct, the leading

resource for leaders, managers and aspiring

managers provided by the Chartered

Management Institute

• CIPFA’s Technical Enquiry Service, providing

specialist technical guidance across the full

spectrum of public financial management

• CIPFA rewards, offering exclusive

discounts on a wide range of products and

services, including holidays, insurance

and entertainment

• networking opportunities through CIPFA’s

local, regional and national networks of

public finance practitioners, and

• access to expertise that will allow you to

build on the knowledge acquired through

your IRRV qualification and keep up to date

with the latest developments in the world

of public finance, through training courses,

journals and magazines and daily public

finance news.

More information about the benefits of

CIPFA membership may be found at

www.cipfa.org/members/benefits-2015

All of the above, along with existing IRRV

membership benefits, adds up to a major

career-enhancing package.

Affiliate membership of CIPFA is available

to IRRV Honours and Fellow members in

good standing who have five or more years

of experience in public service. Affiliates

may use the designatory letters CIPFA (Affil).

Some IRRV members who have particularly

extensive, in-depth experience in public

finance, may apply for full membership of

Michael Hopkins introduces a new initiative designed to offer IRRV members affiliation with CIPFA and more

CIPFA and become a Chartered Public

Finance Accountant.

The IRRV is seeking to discuss further with

CIPFA a more precise definition of the ‘in-depth’ experience that is sought for promotion

to full CIPFA membership status. For the

present, however, applicants should apply for

Affiliate membership, and if they feel that they

have significant public accounting and reporting

experience should submit a separate request

to CIPFA at the membership email address

below, again with a CV, stressing their specific

experience in public finance areas.

Affiliate members pay a subscription of £155

p.a. and full members pay £310 p.a. However

we have negotiated a special arrangement with

CIPFA so that applications approved during

2015 will pay no membership fee for this year.

As with the IRRV, the CIPFA membership year

runs from 1st January to 31st December.

Applicants for Affiliate membership should

visit http://www.cipfa.org/Forms/Accelerated-Membership-Form-2015 then

complete the application form, attach an up

to date CV that demonstrates the requisite

public service experience and submit online

to [email protected]

Institute staff will liaise with CIPFA to ensure

that applicants’ status with the IRRV is valid

and current.

We do encourage you to consider taking

up this offer, as it provides a new opportunity

to strengthen the work you do to support the

provision of public services. Enquiries about

the CIPFA/IRRV scheme should be directed to

[email protected] quoting your IRRV

membership number, or if you have further

queries or thoughts from an IRRV perspective

please contact [email protected]

Latest vocational qualification successes

Congratulations to everyone!!

LEVEL 3 QCF BENEFITS PATHWAY

TITLE EMPLOYER

Lee Brown Stour Valley Partnership

David Hounsell Mouchel Shared Services

LEVEL 3 QCF REVENUES PATHWAY

TITLE EMPLOYER

Christine Booth Sefton Metropolitan BC

Emma L Clifford Cotswold DC IRRVAnnual Conference,

Exhibition and Performance AwardsGala Dinner, Telford

6th – 8th October 2015Book now onwww.irrv.net

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Wales ConferenceMoira Hepworth reports from Llandrindod Wells, where the IRRV’s Wales Conference was once again the place to be.Association Presidents David Owens (North

and Mid-Wales) and Janice Jenkins (South

and West Wales) hosted this year’s Wales

Conference, welcoming IRRV President Kevin

Stewart, to open the conference.

Kevin commented on the scale and pace

of change affecting local government. He

highlighted that revenues, benefits and

valuation were some of the biggest change

areas and that there was no reason to believe

that the next few years would be any different.

The speed of the austerity programme

would no doubt increase, with some welfare

benefits likely to bear the brunt of cuts. Kevin

wondered if the council tax reduction schemes

would be able to continue in the face of

cutbacks. He also conjectured that in the mid-

term, the system of grant funding would “go

away completely”, leaving a very different local

government system in the wake of it.

Immediate Past President of the Institute, Richard Harbord, shared his

thoughts on the General Election outcome and

its impact on local authorities, finding it difficult

to be upbeat about what he saw happening

to local government. With economic growth

forecast to decrease, a reduction in public

expenditure to around 35% of GDP would

further raise the share of welfare within public

expenditure. Expenditure on the NHS required

urgent long-term reform, with procurement of

major contracts in that service being just one

area that needed prompt and major attention.

“The more that went into the NHS, the less

there was for local government”, he warned.

There was little talk nationally about the

effects on local government of the proposed

£12bn expenditure, but the cuts in place were

already biting hard. Across the UK, emergency

payment demands outstripped supply. Business

rates retention posed significant problems,

making realistic forecasts was a daunting

process, and many authorities had little or no

chance of growing their business rates, which

would give rise to marked disparities.

Richard went through various examples of

recent voluntary reorganisations and concluded

that he was unconvinced that it was an

appropriate response to the current austerity

measures – “looking back, claims on savings

on reorganisation are rarely borne out, and

such moves should be faced with caution”,

he concluded.

Clare Elliot, Deputy Director of the Housing Delivery Division at DWP,

provided a comprehensive update on housing

benefit matters. Housing benefit was an

important matter for DWP, because it was

going to be in operation for some considerable

time to come. For a significant proportion of

families the benefit comprises the majority

of their expenditure. A report by Shelter in

2014 found that most families were one pay

cheque away from losing their home, so it was

essential that system changes were handled

extremely carefully – that was what DWP

intended to do. £24bn had been paid out

in housing benefits in the last financial year,

which was ‘off the scale’ when compared to

state pension payments.

Clare stated that DWP are looking at ways

to develop the understanding of claimant

behaviour, and explore how this can be used

to improve claimant engagement by reviewing

the HB new claim customer journey, which

has helped to identify the key area of risk –

the integrated claim process used to transfer

information from DWP to local authorities.

DWP are also working with Behavioural

Insights Team to explore a number of insights

from behavioural science to encourage people

to report changes in circumstances in a

timelier and more honest way. In furtherance

of this, they are working with Canterbury

City Council (on behalf of Canterbury,

Thanet and Dover councils) to introduce

Behavioural Insight techniques to change

HB claimant behaviour.

Ritchie Roberts, Chief Valuer Wales and Valuation Officer for NDR Wales, provided

an interesting session on business rates

valuation. An estimated 66% of non domestic

properties are rented in Wales and the rental

information comes from the forms of return,

the Valuation Office Ratepayer Contact Scheme

and HMRC, who provide details of sales and

leases that are for periods longer than seven

years. In general terms, there had been a

downward shift in primary retail locations, but

secondary locations had held their values,

mainly due to rent free periods and incentives

– in some cases secondary sites were higher

in assessment than the primary locations in the

same areas. Out of town retail parks were also

doing well, but ‘first generation’ retail parks

were not faring as well as later parks. There

had been some counter-intuitive swings in

values in some areas, with rates assessments

going up whereas rents had gone down –

Ritchie speculated that possibly assessments

had been too low in these areas in the last

revaluation. His staff had made extra efforts

this time round to get rental information and

he urged authorities to help in the provision of

relevant information.

David Airey gave a scene-setting summary

of how the enforcement changes of a year ago

were bedding in. In general there had been a

smooth transition to the new arrangements.

He observed that there had been a rise in

the number of internal enforcement agents

as a consequence of the changes. David then

joined Anne-Marie Goddard of the Ministry of

Justice (MoJ), CIVEA Director General Vernon

Phillips and the IRRV’s David Magor for a

panel session. The audience supported the

comments made by the panel regarding the

‘beat the bailiff’ websites that had multiplied

over the year; that they were ‘provocative and fonts of falsehood’, often charging for

bad advice. Whilst the MoJ were unable to do

anything about the sites themselves, Anne-

Marie agreed that the counterbalance was to

get the correct information out in the public

domain about enforcement actions.

Conference Report

News and events Login to IRRV Member Area

Moira Hepworth is the Institute’s

Policy and Research Manager

Education and membership

STUDENT MEMBERSNAME EMPLOYER

Scott Wilkinson Blackpool Council

Liam Dewsbury Epsom and Ewell BC

Louise Batt Walsall Metropolitan BC

Karen Bick Walsall Metropolitan BC

Andrew Bishop Walsall Metropolitan BC

Emily Bishop Walsall Metropolitan BC

Frances Brady Walsall Metropolitan BC

Beverly Bramall Walsall Metropolitan BC

Gurdish Kaur Walsall Metropolitan BC

Maureen Knowles Walsall Metropolitan BC

Zara Nelson Walsall Metropolitan BC

David Ralph Walsall Metropolitan BC

Sarah Stewart Walsall Metropolitan BC

QCF MEMBERS NAME EMPLOYER

Brittany Barber Kings Lynn & West Norfolk BC

Jo Hourican Milton Keynes Council

Kyle Jason Milton Keynes Council

Lorraine Whittle Milton Keynes Council

HONORARY MEMBERS NAME

Mark Shepherd The University of Manchester

Michelle Smithson Durham County Council

Richard Seaman Goldsmith and Co

Rachel McAviney Gosport Borough Council

New members

IRRV Membership Become a member of the largest professional institution operating in the field of revenues, benefits and valuation www.irrv.net

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IRRV Membership Become a member of the largest professional institution operating in the field of revenues, benefits and valuation www.irrv.net

Education and membership New examination syllabus

It is a number of years since the Institute

reviewed its examination syllabus. Since

that time, the profession has changed

considerably and many requests have

been made to review the content of the

syllabus. Having considered the feedback

from practitioners and their employers, a

new syllabus has now been agreed and

this will be launched in September.

The syllabus retains the three stages to

achieving the professional qualif ication;

these being Level 3 Certificate,

Diploma and Honours. Whilst Honours

remains unaf fected, the changes to Level

3 Cer tif icate and Diploma are designed

to at tract more students to study for the

technician qualif ication, whilst a structure

for ensuring a smooth transition to

obtaining the diploma qualif ication has

been created.

All three streams are now catered for

at both Level 3 Cer tif icate and Diploma;

something that does not exist at present.

Fur thermore, students will now be able

to sit subjects that are far more relevant

to their chosen career path (i.e. a benefit

practitioner will not now have to study

Non-Domestic Rating Law).

A webinar is to be recorded that will

set out the changes and explain in much

more detail how the syllabus will operate.

This will be held on the IRRV website, with

the link being sent to all members. Details

of the courses being delivered by IRRV HQ

to achieve the professional qualif ication

under the new syllabus can be found on

the opposite page.

We recognise the need to advise active

students as soon as possible (whether

they be currently studying or waiting for

results) on how the changes will impact

on their studies. Each student will be

contacted individually in August to advise

them on where they now fit into the

current syllabus. This process will be

completed by the end of August.

All enquiries on the changes should

be addressed to Michael Hopkins at

[email protected]

Gary L Watson, Deputy Chief Executive

of the IRRV

Gary Watson provides details of the new examination syllabus, recently launched by the Institute

IRRV Distance Learning

E: [email protected]

T: 020 7691 8984

W: www.distancelearning.org.uk

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This course is designed for those who wish to gain a professional qualification and further their careers.

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CERTIFICATE

Current position: Level 3 CertificateCouncil Tax Law

Non-Domestic Rating Law

Revenues and Local Taxation

Administration with Fraud

Welfare Benefits

Valuation Tribunal Administrative Justice

Council Tax Law


Valuation Tribunal Administration

L3 Business RatesBusiness Rates Administration


Rating Valuation

Valuation Theory and Practice

DIPLOMA

Current position: Centrally Set Assignment

Elective Assignment

Management (2 papers)

Management Case Study

HB & CTR Scheme Administration

and Public Sector Finance

Revenues Administration


(Choose 1)

Law of Council Tax and

Non-Domestic Rating

Welfare Benefits

(Choose 1)

Proposed position: Level 3 CertificateLevel 3 Assignment

Introduction to Council Tax

Introduction to Enforcement and Insolvency

Introduction to Non-Domestic Rate

Introduction to Welfare Benefits

(Choose 2)

Revenues and Local Taxation Administration

Welfare Benefits Administration

(Choose 1)

L3 Business RatesLevel 3 Assignment

Business Rates Administration

Introduction to Non Domestic Rate

Introduction to Valuation for Rating

Valuation Tribunal Introduction to Council Tax

Introduction to Non-Domestic Rate

Introduction to Valuation for Rating

Valuation Tribunal Administration

and Administrative Justice

Proposed position: Diploma Assignment

Management

Management Case Study

Revenues and Local Taxation Administration


Valuation for Rating

Welfare Benefits Administration


(Choose 1)

Council Tax Law & Practice

Enforcement and Insolvency Law and Practice

Law of Property

Non-Domestic Rate Law and Practice

Welfare Benefits Law and Practice

(Choose 1)

Members are invited to contribute towards the feature and come forward with their own personal

memories of the Institute. The Deputy Chief Executive is also happy to try and answer any questions on

the Institute’s history – contact him on [email protected] In addition, copies of previous articles

can be provided on request.

It’s 1897, part five, and Gary Watson’s examination of the minute book provides details of a hectic end to the year

Gary Watson on Twitter

The Executive Committee next met on 4th

December, with Mr George S Ager Esquire in

the chair. Minutes from the meeting held on

16th October were approved and there were

no apologies.

A report of the sub-committee appointed for

the purpose of ascertaining the most suitable

premises for holding the Annual General Meeting

(AGM) and annual dinner was presented and

read. It was resolved that the action of the

sub-committee be approved and the AGM and

annual dinner should take place at the Trocadero

Restaurant, Piccadilly Circus. With Piccadilly

station not opening until 1906, attendees

attending the event were unlikely to travel by

tube to and from the event. Thankfully, the first

taxi service in London, run by the London Electric

Company, became operational in 1897 and was

a mode of transport that could be used.

A letter from the Metropolitan Local Government

(Officers) Association was presented and read,

stating it was their intention to introduce a

Bill into Parliament in the coming session, to

provide for superannuation of metropolitan local

government officers upon the lines laid down in

the Poor Law Officers Superannuation Act 1896.

In the letter, they asked for the Association to

support such a measure.

A further letter from the Secretary to the

Superannuation Conference sent on behalf

of the Municipal Officers Association was

also presented and read, announcing their

intention to again promote their Bill providing

for superannuation to officers in England and

Wales (with the exception of those in the

employment of parish councils). In the letter,

they also asked for the co-operation of the

Association in the matter.

It was resolved that the consideration of the

aforementioned Bills be postponed and that

in the meantime, the Secretary endeavours to

obtain copies of the same.

A letter from the Metropolitan Local

Government (Officers) Association was then

presented and read, inviting the Association to

appoint delegates to confer as to the desirability

and practicability of establishing a Federation

Scheme for all common objects in connection

with metropolitan local government. It was

resolved (upon the motion of Mr Maltby) that the

Chairman, Vice Chairman and Honorary Secretary

be appointed delegates to attend the conference.

A letter from Mr Pollinger (St Marys

Newington) was presented and read, giving

particulars of the recent action against his

Board by the Inland Revenue authorities upon

the question of receipt stamps for rates. In

the letter, he also tendered the resignation

of himself and colleagues as members of the

Association. The Honorary Secretary reported

that he had replied to the aforementioned

communication, regretting the resignation of

the Newington collectors. It was resolved the

action of the Secretary be approved.

With all letters now presented and read, it was

resolved that the Honorary Secretary obtains, as

soon as the same are printed, sufficient copies of

the Government Bill foreshadowed in the recent

speech of Lord Salisbury, and to supply each

member of the Executive with one.

It was then resolved that a sum not exceeding

£11.11/- be expended upon musical talent for

the entertainment at the annual dinner. It was

further resolved that a dinner ticket be sent to

Valentine Goddard Esquire asking if he would

be kind enough to act as toastmaster at the

forthcoming dinner. A ticket was also to be sent

to Mr Foskett (I know not why!).

The meeting then concluded with a vote of

thanks accorded to the Chairman for his able

and impartial conduct in the chair.

The final meeting of the Executive Committee

in 1897 took place on the 18th December, with

Mr George S Ager Esquire in the chair. Minutes

from the meeting held on 4th December were

approved and there were no apologies.

A letter from the Vice Chairman, Mr Hunter,

was presented and read, expressing his regret

at not being present owing to the death of his

little daughter. It was resolved unanimously

that the Secretary writes to Mr Hunter,

regretting the cause of his absence and

expressing on behalf of the Association, their

heartfelt sympathy to Mrs Hunter and himself

in their bereavement.

Turning to the forthcoming annual dinner, it

was resolved that the stewards at the event be

the whole of the Executive (three line whip!)

together with Mr Crane (clearly someone the

Executive could rely upon at such times!).

The Committee then considered the draft

annual report prepared by the Chairman and

Secretary. Following several alterations made

therein, it was resolved that the report, as

amended, be adopted as the report of the

Executive Committee for the year 1897 and

that a copy be sent to every member of the

Association. It was resolved that the thanks of

the Committee be tendered to the Chairman

and Secretary for producing the draft report.

Referring back to the last meeting, it was

resolved that the consideration of the two

superannuation schemes be postponed until

the next meeting of the Committee. In the

meantime, the Secretary should write to Mr

Paget, asking him to furnish copies of the Bill

to be promoted by the Metropolitan Local

Government (Officers) Association.

Finally, it was resolved that the next

meeting of the Committee should take place

on Saturday, 8th January 1898. The meeting

then concluded, with a cordial vote of thanks

accorded to the Chairman for his able and

impartial conduct in the chair.

From the

“ The Honorary Secretary reported that he had replied to the aforementioned communication, regretting the resignation of the Newington collectors.”

Gary L Watson IRRV (Hons) is

Deputy Chief Executive of the Institute

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Daisy’s Diary

example, a policeman. What does the uniform ‘say’? To me it radiates authority, security and protection. Unless someone exposes the policeman as a fraud, I will likely believe without questioning that he is a policeman and that he has authority to keep me secure and protected! If we put the same man in casual clothes I would not believe as easily that he is in fact a policeman with authority. Try it with other uniforms you can think of, and notice the different messages they send.

Now think back to your own style words. Maybe they are ‘powerful’, ‘successful’, ‘dynamic’ ...or ‘approachable, knowledgeable, helpful’? Or maybe ‘competent’, ‘fun’, ‘kind’? No matter what your style words are, your clothes should be like a uniform, transmitting your style words on your behalf. They have to convince your audience that you are in fact powerful, successful and dynamic before you have even said a word.

Of course your style words will change depending on the activities you have planned for the day (for example, reporting at a board meeting requires a different look than being the head of a team meeting or even a fan at your son’s football match) – but they will always be true to your unique identity.

If you have any comments or questions about this article, please feel free to contact me on [email protected] – I look forward to hearing from you. And don’t forget, for any queries regarding your IRRV membership, please continue to use [email protected] – many thanks!

Daisy Schubert is a Membership Officer with the IRRV

Hi everyone and welcome to Daisy’s Diary!

Last month we learned how the choice of colours impacts first impressions. Now we will examine the two objectives of impeccable style – the fit and condition of a garment, as well as the style words or the style statement it conveys.

We all know what happens when a garment is two sizes too big for us – it’s floppy, uncomfortable and drowning! But the same is true for a garment that might be the ‘right’ size, but doesn’t suit our proportions, body shape, scale and line. What effect does an ill-fitted, un-ironed, stained suit or blazer have on the people we meet? If the garment looks floppy, could they subconsciously conclude the same about our character, or our approach to a project we work on?

Next, let’s define our style words! That means we have to think about our personal appearance as communication. What do we want people to think the moment they see us? Depending on your style words you then choose colours, shapes and garments that will convey exactly that message and visually support your professional credibility.

Does that work? Think of typical uniforms, for

This month, Daisy Schubert declares that if our personal appearance is powerful non-verbal communication, what message are you sending?

A London taxi rank in 1897

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If the cap fits then we’ll have to wear it...

The Scottish welfare reform agenda

The recent General Election had everything,

including the twist at the end with the

Conservatives gaining a majority. At times I

thought back to the classic Father Ted episode

where Fathers Ted and Dougal were selected

to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song

Contest, for the reason that Ireland couldn’t

afford to win again so they put forward the

Fathers with a song so bad there was no

way they could win. There was an element

that suggested that neither Dave nor Ed

really wanted to win the election and this

was highlighted by the suggestion that Dave

had two speeches prepared – one resolute

in defeat, the other picking out the positive

lessons learned from the Coalition and how

they would be used for another term!

However, now that all the fuss is over and

Dave is getting over the shock of winning

the election, attention was focussed on the

Queen’s Speech and the announcement of

the programme of legislation that we have to

look forward to.

The item that is of particular interest to us in

revenues and benefits was the mention of the

Full Employment and Welfare Benefits Bill.At the time of writing, there is little detail on

which we can feed but the main elements that

we are aware of are:

• a working-age benefits freeze, and

• lowering the benefit cap.

The first element will not impact us directly,

as the explanation shows:

• the new legislation would freeze the main

rates of the majority of working age benefits,

tax credits and Child Benefit for two years

from 2016 to 2017

• pensioners would be protected, as would

benefits relating to the additional costs

of disability

• statutory payments, such as Statutory

Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Pay would

also be exempted.

The Benefit Faculty Board regularly receives,

for information, reports on benefits matters

which have been produced by other bodies.

A recent paper of interest comes from the

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities’

(COSLA) Executive Group, in which is reviewed

the risks and opportunities with respect to the

recent election of the new UK government,

the position on current stage welfare reform

changes and the prospects for welfare

devolution following the Smith Agreement.

While COSLA states that it has not been

able to prevent the rollout of the full range

of welfare changes, it has reported a number

of successes. It has worked with the Scottish

Government to mitigate the impact of the

reduction of council tax support and ensured

the successful rollout of the Scottish Welfare

Fund by councils across Scotland. It has

also largely achieved full mitigation of the

“bedroom tax” in Scotland. And the report

identifies that COSLA has helped to shape

UK government policy in regard to the local

support necessary to implement Universal

Credit (UC) and key roles for which local

authorities require resourcing - and it has

seen modifications, with alternative payment

arrangements possible for those at risk.

The report highlights that the forecast

scale of further cuts to the income of those

dependent on benefits would put severe

pressure on families and local communities,

as well as placing significant financial pressure

on local government in Scotland. From

a local government perspective, COSLA

expects pressure on the Scottish Welfare

Fund, on Discretionary Housing Payments, on

children’s services, homelessness services,

and increased demand across a range of other

services. Pressure would also be expected on

income streams from rent collection, council

tax collection and charging policies.

COSLA officers will continue to ensure that

there is meaningful engagement around the

implications of UC for local government. Key

On the plus side, it will make year end a bit

easier, in that we won’t have uprating to worry

about! However, the freeze will, in real terms,

result in a reduction in income for those

already with limited resources. In saying that,

at a time when inflation has been revealed as

being 0.1% (June 2015), it ’s not going to make

a big dent in the welfare budget. Still, it makes

for an attention grabbing headline.

As I say, a freeze in some welfare benefits

won’t affect us directly, but if inflation rises

over the coming months (the Bank of England

‘target’ is for it to be at 2%) we will see

a continued drain on already diminishing

discretionary funds, as the cumulative effect of

a freeze takes hold on finances.

It is surprising to see that tax credits are

included in those benefits that will be frozen

and there is a danger – unless Working Tax

Credits (WTC) are exempt – that this will

have a detrimental impact on the intended

outcomes of the second element, which is

lowering the benefit cap.

A strong persuasive argument that

supported the £26,000 benefit cap was that

by taking up a job that resulted in receiving

WTC meant that the benefit cap no longer

applied. A freeze on tax credits may not be all

that significant at an individual level but it is

nevertheless another hurdle to overcome.

However it might be helpful to illustrate

what this reduced benefit cap means,

assuming the qualifying criteria remains

unaltered. An annual benefit cap of £23,000

equates to £442.30 per week.

The Couple Rate for Jobseekers Allowance

(IB) is currently £114.85 per week with a Child

Tax Credit per child of £57.00 per week. For

a three child family, that amounts to £285.85

per week, which only leaves £156.45 available

for housing benefit.

“More than enough” will come the cry from

the ‘north’ but many southern authorities

in particular will be affected as much if not

more than before. For example the LHA for a

areas of risk include:

• the readiness and scalability of the digital

service by April 2016

• whether engagement with HMRC, local

authorities and other delivery partners

including landlords will be sufficient, and

• whether operational processes prove

sustainable as volumes increase.

In addition, there are concerns as to whether

all funding to support delivery is agreed and

sufficient. The report questions whether

housing cost design is robust enough to ensure

accurate and timely payment avoiding fraud

and error and whether real time information

processes work effectively at large volumes.

A critical area for councils will be the

continuing uncertainty as to the future of the

housing benefit service. Regardless of the pace

of UC rollout and migration of housing benefit

claimants to UC, a housing benefit service will

still need to be provided. Whilst one scenario

may see DWP seeking to engage more closely

with local authorities over housing costs in

a UC environment, given the progress of UC

rollout and local authorities’ well established

landlord functions, just as likely is the

possibility that DWP may potentially withdraw

from engagement with local authorities and try

to go it alone.

The report highlights a steady erosion of

the administrative support grant from DWP

to support housing benefit delivery (as well

as funding administration of the council

tax reduction scheme), as year on year

efficiencies have been applied. COSLA aims

to ensure that DWP is sighted on the concerns

over the funding of the housing benefit service

and for clarity on the changes to be brought

about in the coming term.

The freedom of action for Scotland regarding

welfare matters as recommended under the

Smith Agreement, which includes being able

to make administrative changes to UC and to

vary the housing cost element, may not be as

two-bedroomed property in the area I work in

is £182.00 per week and social housing rents

aren’t much further behind.

Already we have had our major social

housing group contacting us with a request for

details of those tenants who may be affected

by the lower cap limit, as they are beginning to

show concern.

In some respects this is all nothing new –

it is just that the bar has been lowered. It was

not that long ago that we were meeting the

challenge of the introduction of the benefit

cap at £26,000 and it ’s time to pick those

policies and strategies off the shelf and blow

the dust off. It is also time to identify the

successes that there have been up and down

the country in helping people into work

and equally important, manage their

finances effectively.

Recent editions of Insight have included

examples of good practice from award winning

authorities and it is perhaps time to learn from

those lessons. It is also time, if you start to see

an increase in cases, to search around your

own authorities to see what is being done.

I found that by working in partnership with

the local Jobcentre plus, housing department,

Citizens Advice Bureaux, and the county

councils, particularly the Troubled Families

team, opened up other areas, such as

links to other charities and interest groups

that we were not in regular contact with,

all of whom provided valuable assistance

in implementation.

It is far better to be proactive and actively

manage the implementation. Whatever our

personal feelings about the legitimacy of the

benefit cap, it is a lot easier if we start off

looking for solutions rather than obstacles.

great as envisaged, because of the design and

interdependence of UK social security. There

will also be the matter of the fiscal framework

and what can be afforded in Scotland.

Despite this, COSLA sees a real opportunity

to ensure that benefits for carers, disabled

people and people who have chronic health

conditions are properly aligned with the

health and social care system, which is itself

undergoing a process of integration. This may

be an opportunity to explore the concept

of a single gateway administered by local

authorities, which would allow people to

access appropriate levels of financial support

based on need and agreed personal outcomes.

The report identifies that the full landscape

of welfare changes and policy shifts which

may arise over the next year is not yet clear.

Despite the uncertainties, there will still be

a role for local authorities in mitigating the

adverse impacts on communities and services

of welfare reforms. The organisation will still

need to work with both the UK government

and Scottish Government to develop local

supports and to undertake work to influence

both policy development and implementation.

COSLA is committed to playing a key role

in providing political direction on the resource

implications around responding to welfare

reform changes. Their added challenge this

year, the report states, is to develop a strong,

coherent view of how Scotland can make best

use of devolved powers over welfare and how

the new powers can complement existing

services delivered through local authorities.

“ Already we have had our major social housing group contacting us with a request for details of those tenants who may be affected by the lower cap limit, as they are beginning to show concern.”

“The report questions whether housing cost design is robust enough to ensure accurate and timely payment avoiding fraud and error and whether real time information processes work effectively at large volumes.”

Benefits bulletinFaculty board report

...says Phil Adlard, as he examines the welfare reform fallout following the General Election

This month it’s the turn of the Benefits Faculty Board, and Moira Hepworth provides a valuable insight

Phil Adlard Tech IRRV MInstLM MCMI

is a member of the Institute’s Council, and

Vice-Chair of the IRRV Benefits Faculty

Moira Hepworth BA (Hons)is the

Institute’s Policy and Research Manager

Geoff Fisher’s monthly summary of all things valuation is as wide-ranging as ever

Geoff Fisher FRICS Dip.Rating IRRV (Hons) REV is a Past President of the IRRV, and a member of the Institute’s Professional Conduct Committee

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Valuation matters

The Institute’s Revenues and Enforcement

Conference, held at Keele University in June,

featured a substantial number of presentations

of great interest to the valuation community. We

use this column to provide highlights – you can

read more of this key event in the IRRV calendar

in our cover story feature.

The Department for

Communities and Local

Government’s Nick Cooper introduced a review of

business rate policy, starting

out with a fascinating

high level analysis of local

government income and expenditure, leading

to the importance of the role of business rates

in the process. Nick described the issues to be

tackled by the review of administration, which

included appeals reform, including measures

in the ‘Enterprise Bill’ announced at Queen’s

speech, tackling rates avoidance, better data

sharing from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA)

to local government – also in the Enterprise Bill

– and digital improvements.

Director of Non-Domestic Rating with

the VOA and IRRV Council member Mary Hardman revealed the goals the Agency was

working towards in respect of the 2017 business

rate revaluation. The challenging timescales

involved ensuring:

• 70% of all entries are valued (and 40%

validated) by 29th January 2016


validated) by 13th March 2016


validated) by 8th April 2016


validated) by 29th April 2016


validated) by 27th May 2016.

The draft Rating List was set to be published

on 30th Sept 2016, with summary valuations

available online and the helpdesk opening on

1st October 2016, with the compiled Rating

Lists published on 1st April 2017. As part of the

Agency’s ‘channel shift’ drive, Mary confirmed

that the summary valuations would only be

available online, and explained the value of the

investment in the Local Authority Relationship

Manager role.

The importance of rates

retention and the maximisation

of income for the local

authority was a key feature of

the presentation from Roger

Messenger, IRRV Past President and Senior

Partner with Wilks, Head and Eve. Roger cited

the frequency of revaluations, the accuracy

of the List and the resources that need to be

deployed as major issues for consideration.

The importance of the role of the VOA

and billing authorities was stressed, as Roger

restated the need for investment in the

inspection process when focusing on the

resources needed to maximise business rate

income, a difficult challenge when related

to the current precarious position of local

authority finances.

Capita’s Divisional Rating Director,

Christopher Grose, asserted that any changes

in property usage that affect some sectors

more than others, should be reflected in the

rental market and therefore revaluations.

Business rates is a highly efficient tax, he added,

with high collection rates with a low cost and

evasion limited. However, “there is a need to

explain the business rates system better”. He

also questioned the link between inflation and

business rates, and suggested the option of

removing small properties from the system,

together with an examination of investment in

plant and machinery, energy efficiency, etc.

Equestrian activity is the subject of a recent Valuation Tribunal caseIn a case heard before the President of the

Valuation Tribunal for England, Professor

Graham Zellick, the issue of whether the non-

commercial training of racehorses warranted

a domestic or non-domestic rating stance

was the subject area. In the cases of John Cornwall v Alexander VO (April Cottage –

appeal no. 243023860173/539N10) and John Panvert v Reeves VO (Steart Farm – appeal

no. 113523404906/537N10), the President’s

conclusions read as follows:

“People use their houses, land and

outbuildings in many different ways. Many and

varied are people’s passions, interests and

hobbies. Most people don’t have equestrian

facilities or own a horse. Of those who do, some

will just ride for pleasure; others will hunt, race,

jump or engage in eventing, dressage or polo.

These are just different facets of the love of and

devotion to horses.

These many forms of equestrian activity,

absent a commercial element or a scale that

is completely out of keeping with a pastime or

hobby, should not be questioned. On different

facts, non-commercial use will not necessarily

escape rating simply on the assertion that it is

a hobby. Keeping of horses is long-established

and recognised. Other uses may produce a

different result, although this Tribunal should

be slow to pronounce an activity as rateable

merely because it is uncommon, unusual or

unconventional.

At the risk of grandiosity in this relatively

modest context, I go so far as to say that an

Englishman in his castle – unless Parliament

legislates clearly to the contrary – enjoys a

very wide latitude to indulge his interests and

passions before the State is entitled to exact

financial penalties and the taxpayer bound to

suffer additional taxation.

The facilities in Steart Farm are not ‘other appurtenances’ within s. 66(1)(b) for the

reasons given above. Mr Panvert’s appeal must

therefore be dismissed.

April Cottage, however, meets what I might

call the physical or objective test but it must also

satisfy... the domestic use requirement.

I reject the proposition that racehorse-training

is necessarily or inherently a non-domestic

activity. In my judgment, it is a matter of scale

and degree and thus turns on the specific facts.

On the specific facts, Mr Cornwall’s racehorse-

training activity is within the range of use

properly described as domestic. Mr Cornwall’s

appeal accordingly succeeds.”

A full transcript of the cases is available on the

VTE website on www.valuationtribunal.gov.uk/ListingsAndDecisions

Valuation Office Agency caseworker contacts updatedFollowing on from the Valuation Office

Agency’s Professional Bodies Liaison Group

meeting in May, the caseworker contact list

has been updated to reflect staff movements

onto different areas of work. As with the

original list, the Agency asks that the update

has access restricted to members only, and is

only used in connection with the settlement of

rating appeals.

If you need to receive a copy of the list,

contact the IRRV’s Deputy Chief Executive

Gary Watson, on [email protected]

Valuers’ Association Monthly Page

V@MPConference extra! RATING

Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) decisions:In K Bainbridge VO v Boldfield & Greenfield Software Ltd the VO had appealed against

the Valuation Tribunal (VT) decision to reduce

the RVs of offices at Buckingway Business Park,

Cambridge, from £25,750 to £19,750, and from

£51,500 to £39,500, reflecting post-AVD ‘oversupply’ at the Material Dates of 2010

and 2013, following completion of Trinity Court.

The Upper Tribunal found, after considering

the weighting of the particular evidence in the

context of Lotus and Delta v Culverwell VO

1976 RA14, that the decline in rents was entirely attributable to the effects of the recession, and the pre-VT RVs were restored.

The decision included debate as to lease

renewals and rent reviews in the hierarchy of

evidence. See http://www.landstribunal.gov.uk/Aspx/view.aspx?id=1159

Wonder Investments Ltd v D Jackson VO

concerned a case ‘struck out’ (Reg.10) – an

appeal where the appellant had failed to submit

a Statement of Case to the VT and VO in time,

and the VT Vice President decided to refuse an

application for reinstatement of the case. The

Upper Tribunal member reviewed the various

regulations, dismissed the VO’s application to

strike out the appeal under its case management

powers, and invited either party to make further

submissions on the substance of the appeal, or

wish the Tribunal to hold an oral hearing.

See http://www.landstribunal.gov.uk/Aspx/view.aspx?id=1163

Look out for VT Valuation in Practice VIP37 for the latest news on Upper Chamber

and Valuation Tribunal Decisions, etc. Go to

http://www.valuationtribunal.gov.uk/vip_newsletter.aspx See also the latest VT User Group minutes

at http://www.valuationtribunal.gov.uk/VTUsersGroupMinutes.aspx

The IRRV Revenues and Enforcement Conference held in Keele in June included a

policy review by Nick Cooper (DCLG Business

Rates Team), ‘Transience: the forgotten ingredient of rateable occupation’ by

Cain Ormondroyd (Francis Taylor Building),

‘Prospects for the 2017 Revaluation’ by

Mary Hardman (VOA Director), ‘Business Rate Retention: the Future’ by Roger Messenger

(Wilks Head and Eve), and ‘Business Rate Review – The Discussion Paper’ by Richard

Harbord, Immediate IRRV Past President IRRV

and Christopher Grose (Rating – Capita). See

the opposite page for more detailed reports on

this event.

The IRRV Lancashire and Cheshire Association held a Business Rates Seminar in Preston on 1st July, with presentations on

rating methods of valuation, rating appeals,

completion notices, rates retention, and a case

update involving charities and rates mitigation.

See http://www.irrv.net/associations/documents/IRRV%20Newsletter%2012%20June%2015%20Extra.pdf

Crossrail works (see below) continue to cause

major disruptions to business in central London

and beyond, leading to various 2005 and 2010

List MCC rating appeals for temporary and

other reductions, but the phased introduction

of services are due not to begin until mid-2017

– after the 2017 revaluation. See the Rating

Surveyors’ Association (RSA) website re RSA co-

ordination of appeals, etc. at

http://www.ratingsurveyorsassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=91&Itemid=33

GENERAL PRACTICE

‘Red Book’ update – the UK and global portions

of the RICS Valuation – Professional Standards,

are now issued as separate pdfs, with the June

reprint of the global portion incorporating the

December 2013 correction, minor errata and

an updated index. References only relevant to

the UK portion have been removed. The UK portion has been updated with effect from

April 2015, including the reflecting of changes

to UK GAAP and the Code of Practice on

Local Authority accounting in UK (CIPFA), and

adjusting the lease term assumption in UK App 10, from 70 years to 85 years, where it is

not possible to inspect the lease.

The Compulsory Purchase Association (CPA) National Conference 2015 was held in London on

30 June and included presentations on improving

CPO processes, reform programmes, good practice

at the Tribunal, legal and decisions updates and the

need for accredited CPO practitioners. See http://www.compulsorypurchaseassociation.org/cpa-conference-2015.html

Crossrail – completion of the tunnelling

marathon took effect in June 2015, with continuing

construction and civil engineering, Network Rail

works, trains and railway depots, and the phased

introduction of services scheduled from mid-2017.

Multiple businesses have been affected and many

dispossessed by compulsory purchase to make way

for this major scheme, having to relocate or close

and claim statutory compensation. Whilst much of

the central London section is deep under ground,

the rebuilding of, for example, Tottenham Court

Road station, has caused years of disruption, albeit

creating opportunities for substantial redevelopment.

See the latest quarterly update at http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/quarterly-crossrail-update/

A new exhibition, ‘Breakthrough: Crossrail’s tunnelling story’ at the London Transport

Museum in Covent Garden, reveals London’s hidden

subterranean landscape on one of the largest railway

construction projects in Europe and is open until

31st August.

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sector” view of the world of debt recovery.

Robbie’s presentation highlighted some very

worrying trends. “People who’ve experienced

‘life events’ in the last year are more than

three times as likely to show signs of financial

difficulty, e.g. separation, job loss, reduced

hours, illness”, he said. Other research

identified that 13 million people could not rely

on savings to keep up with essential bills for

a month if their income dropped by a quarter,

and 63% of the workforce worry how they

would cope if they faced an income shock.

Robbie concluded by setting out his

organisation’s ‘wish list ’, which included:

• genuinely affordable, longer term repayment

plans offered early on in the arrears process

• the piloting of different messages in arrears

letters, and

• much fewer cases sent to bailiffs.

He also pointed out that the government

could help by sending consistent messages

to councils on the importance of affordable,

sustainable repayment – reflected in

measurements (e.g. % cases to bailiffs), and

considering introducing a “bailiff ombudsman”

to handle complaints.

The first day concluded with a return of

the national President, Kevin Stewart, who

presented a wide ranging and fascinating

account of the issues facing collection staff.

Kevin started out with a history lesson,

covering the delicate position demonstrated

by national collection rates, and leading to the

“can’t pay, won’t pay” conundrum. Analysing

the issues surrounding poverty, he tackled

the difficulties introduced by the council

tax support schemes, and moved on to the

manner in which his own authority, Luton,

was meeting the emerging problems.

Kevin illustrated how the third sector was

engaged in Luton, through the authority’s ‘Luton Access’ programme, the corporate approach

to debt, and many other initiatives that ensured

that the authority remained in the forefront of

Even the untimely intervention of a General

Election was unable to deter another healthy

turnout of participants at the Institute’s

Revenues and Enforcement Conference,

held once again at Keele University in June.

This year’s rescheduling of IRRV events was

always going to provide a challenge, but well

over a hundred delegates, a first rate collection

of speakers and a bustling exhibition area

ensured that it was ‘business as usual’ in this

critical area of the Institute’s portfolio.

Following the customary domestic

announcements and a very warm welcome

from IRRV President Kevin Stewart, it was

straight down to business with Nick Cooper of the Department for Communities and Local

Government (DCLG). Nick immediately put

the attendees at ease by confirming that in

spite of its various alternative descriptions in

both law and practice, ‘business rates’ was

still very much the phrase to describe this

important source of government income!

Turn to pages 14 and 15 for more summaries

of the proceedings at Keele. Our ‘Valuation

matters’ column covers the papers delivered

by Nick Cooper, Christopher Grose, Mary

Hardman and Roger Messenger.

With a wave of litigation currently having

its effect on the profession, it was no

surprise that barrister Cain Ormondroyd’s

presentation drew the crowd, as he proceeded

to take delegates through the minefield of

business rate law and practice, with a keen

eye on transience, the “forgotten ingredient

of rateable occupation”.

Cain’s focus on the issue of permanence

was illustrated by a number of key examples

of case law, some very recent and etched in

the mind of delegates, including of course the

infamous Makro case.

innovation and change management.

Our President was again in the spotlight

in the evening, as delegates enjoyed dinner

in the delightful Keele Hall, where the

highlights included a raffle presided over by

the man himself, producing over £400 for the

President’s own leukaemia and lymphoma

research charity (who joined in on the event

with their own exhibition stand), and over

£100 each for the Institute’s Benevolent Fund

and Educational Foundation.

Delegates returned bright and early the

following morning, to be treated to a ‘double

header’ comprising two 2014 Performance

Award winners. First up was Luton’s Clive Jones, who ably identified why his authority

was chosen as winners in the Excellence in Innovation category. Against the backdrop of

an authority with “all the characteristics of an

inner London borough”, Clive illustrated the

steps Luton had taken to move outside of their

local comfort zone, providing services for others

though their trading wing, which specialised

in income maximisation through internalising

bailiff services, increasing rate retention and

Improved performance throughout.

The second award winners were

represented by Robert Hawes, who

demonstrated why Chelmsford Council were

worthy winners of the Revenues Team of the Year award. Robert explained how his

authority was moving away from traditional

focus on in-year collection rates and looking

carefully at specific budget requirements,

using partnership and legislative opportunities

as best they could. Robert also pointed out

that the authority did not adopt a traditional

‘sausage machine’ approach, but reacted in a

proactive, personal but persistent manner to

collect debt.

The IRRV’s Immediate Past President

Richard Harbord tried hard to live up to his

self-promoted image of the bringer of doom

and gloom, as he amused the audience with

Following the welcome presence of Institute

Council member and Valuation Office

Agency business rate chief Mary Hardman,

who confirmed that the 2017 business rate

revaluation was proceeding as planned, it

was the enforcement agenda that took centre

stage. Recent IRRV conferences have often

featured a combined session involving a trio

of enforcement professionals, and this year

was no exception, as JBW Group’s Jeremy

Brim, Andy Cummins of Phoenix and Institute

Past President Dave Chapman of Rossendales,

conspired to provide a thought provoking and

entertaining end to the first morning.

Jeremy Brim took to the platform first,

and with the obvious subject material

being a review of the first year of the new

enforcement legislation, he was clear in his

view that a more consistent framework for

all stages of the enforcement process was

evident, with a clear, open and transparent

fee structure. “Enforcement agencies, agents

and their clients have a clearer and consistent

set of regulations and standards that must

be complied with”, he confirmed. Whilst

there were still operational issues in need of

resolution, Jeremy pressed home his view that

with the right cultural change across the board,

the new regime was going to be a success.

Andy Cummins followed on, and with the

aid of a series of slides featuring the ever-

popular elephant, his conclusion was that “the

compliance stage has been a success and

has exceeded expectations – let’s continue

to embrace and support it and resist any

attempts to undermine it.”

Taking delegates up to lunch, Dave Chapman turned his attention to the vexed

area of vulnerability, particularly when

associated with the new provisions for the

taking control of goods. Dave asserted

that this critical area was of even greater

importance than before, citing a Children’s

Society report which quite naturally favoured

extreme care when dealing with families in

his anecdote which highlighted that local

government was in a healthy position up to the

very day he joined it! His concerns included

the rather draconian fear that this vital aspect

of local democracy could eventually disappear

altogether, as he reminded delegates that the

DCLG was virtually toothless these days, and

worryingly under the control of the Treasury.

The final session of the conference fell

to the ‘dynamic duo’ of the Institute’s own

Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive,

David Magor and Gary Watson, who treated

delegates to an up to the minute summary

of everything they needed to know about the

revenues and enforcement field and more!

Once again, the IRRV had produced a high

quality event appreciated by all and providing

plenty of food for thought on the journey

home and back in the office the following day.

debt. His concluding slide confirmed that

in spite of its success, the new legislation

still suffered from some “unintended

consequences” that needed attention.

The event would of course have been

incomplete had the issue of the level of

liability order costs been absent, and IRRV

Council member and Insight regular Alistair Townsend led an extended session which

allowed delegates to have their say on the

Reverend Paul Nicolson’s successful challenge

of Haringey’s approach to court costs.

Offering some sympathy, Alistair suggested

that Haringey may have “taken one for

the team” on this issue! He was joined by

Cain Ormondroyd and IRRV Deputy Chief

Executive Gary Watson, as a lively discussion

ensued in respect of the level of costs and

their reasonableness.

Alistair’s conclusions highlighted that

whilst there was no definitive ‘correct’ way to

calculate court costs, local authorities would

be well advised to set proportional costs

relating to the application for a liability order

which included:

• staffing costs

• supplies and services

• recharges

• document production

• postage

• management costs

• court preparation, and

• complaint costs.

However, he pointed out that this could

include “wrong things”, and that each case

only gives conceptual information, all general

guidance is non-binding, and that it is always

a decision for each bench at each hearing. His

advice? “Always provide details to the court,

whether you are asked or not”.

IRRV events always provide the opportunity

for contrasting views, and this year’s event

followed the trend, as StepChange Debt

Charity’s Robbie De Santos provided a “third

John Roberts reports from Keele, as the great and the good in revenues and enforcement gathered once again to put their world to rights

John Roberts IRRV (Hons) is Managing

Editor of the Institute’s magazines

Cover story

The Institute’sRevenues and EnforcementConference report

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Bad news and bad housing!

When analysing print and mail costs, the focus

naturally falls on regular, big volume mailouts

such as annual billing. Challenges of this nature

are predictable in terms of timing and volumes,

and authorities are able to easily identify and

allocate the spend associated with such a visible

operation. As a result, informed decisions can

be made about the processing of such critical

communications, and many authorities are

recognising the benefits of partnering with

experts to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Where authorities are less successful is in

managing the production of everyday, ad-hoc

correspondence. The difficulty here is that

volumes are varied and unpredictable and

associated expenditure is difficult to track due to

production being spread across numerous sites,

people and departmental budgets.

The vast majority of this type of

correspondence is still produced internally. And

yet the cost of doing so is staggering. Even if

the authority has some way of tracking the final

postage total associated with mail of this nature,

it is highly unlikely that related ‘burdened costs’ will be calculated. Burdened costs are those

costs that must be absorbed in order to print and

mail documents in-house. Several studies and

reports have been commissioned over the years

to show the true cost of internal staff producing

mail but our own research is particularly pertinent

to public sector readers. We work with over 50

authorities across the UK and this experience

has enabled us to calculate burdened costs

accurately – and to revise them year on year.

The true cost of internal productionThe table below shows the average burdened

costs per document based on our work with

local authorities:

Well, here we go with the time lag again. The

Queen’s Speech was on 27th May. It gave us

a mere sketchy outline of the benefit-cutting

measures to come. But you will be reading this

after the projected July Budget, which means

that you will have a lot more detail than I do at

the time of writing.

So what did Her Majesty (and accompanying

government briefings) tell us?

There will be a freeze on a number of

working-age benefits and tax credits for two

years from 2016/17. We knew that.

The benefit cap threshold will be reduced to

£23,000 per year. We knew that, too.

“Automatic entitlement to housing support”

for 18-21 year olds is to go. And we knew that,

as well.

But the content of the colossal £12 billion of

benefit cuts that the new government proposes

to make is still largely (around £10.5 billion)

unknown at the time of writing. I shall doubtless

have something to say about it next issue.

ResearchMeanwhile, back on the frontier between

benefits and housing, there is some interesting

new research just out.

Citizens Advice, with the New Policy

Institute (NPI), have recently published a

report concerning the growth of the private

rented sector, its changing composition (a lot

more families with children) and the poor and

even dangerous conditions that are too often

to be found in its lower reaches1.

This was very interesting to me. Apart from

the fact that I am interested in housing policy

anyway, just about the last thing I did before

leaving Citizens Advice in April 2014, after

a stint as the housing policy specialist, was

to present a paper to senior managers on

issues in the housing market, including the

private rented sector. It is good to see that that

strand of work has continued, especially in

collaboration with our esteemed friends

at the NPI.

Looking at these figures it becomes clear that

much of the hidden cost of internal document

production is generated by the reliance on

staff time. Indeed, we calculate that for each

mailed item, 20% of the cost is consumables

and printing, 56% is labour, with postage

accounting for the remaining 24%. Staff will

be skilled in many facets of their role but print

production will not be an area of expertise

– nor should it be one that imposes on their

daily tasks.

Critiqom’s expert, purpose-built production

systems and our Primepost postal optimisation

solution reduce these costs to around 30p plus

on average*, an estimated saving of around

£1.21 per letter. Multiplied across a working

year (based on 260 days per year and sending

around 100,000 mailed items per annum) this

saving equates to £121,000 per year.

Savings aren’t restricted to bulk mail. A

hybrid mail solution like IQ PostMe from

Critiqom, enables staff to send print-jobs

via a desktop portal to our production sites,

rather than producing mail on costly office

printers, and can effectively capture all of

the small volumes of ad-hoc correspondence

generated across an authority. Because these

smaller volumes are batched together at our

production sites we are able to unlock the

postal discounts through our Primepost solution that would otherwise be unavailable.

Efficiency and savings in actionThis expertise is currently driving efficiency

and savings for The Anglia Revenues Partnership (ARP) , a group of seven local

authorities working together to provide a

shared service to residents across East Anglia.

ARP recently reviewed its print and postal

operation and recognised an opportunity to

further improve efficiencies. Critiqom was

selected to handle the partnership’s daily letter

volume, totalling some 36,000 letters per

month, comprised of administration relating to

council tax, housing benefit and various debt

recovery and business rate documentation.

ARP’s Stuart Philpot, Strategic Manager

(Support), comments, “We knew that our

So what has this got to do with benefits in

general and Universal Credit (UC) in particular?

Well, you will not be surprised to learn that the

report draws attention to the fact that a large

amount of Housing Benefit (HB) finds its way

into the private rented sector:

“Overall, despite getting a worse product,

private renters pay more than those in other

tenures. On average, private renters spend a

third (34%) of their income on housing costs.

And, with incomes squeezed, HB is taking the

strain... These high costs extend to homes that

are unsafe. The average rent paid for private

rental properties that are unsafe is £157 a

week meaning that, in total, private landlords

are paid £5.6 billion a year in rent for unsafe

homes, £1.3 billion of which is paid by the

state in the form of HB.”

In future, of course, it will be the rental

element of UC that increasingly ‘takes the strain’.

In the past, some commentators have

suggested that HB should not be paid for

substandard accommodation. However, this

would in practice leave a lot of tenants still

stuck where they are, but struggling even more

to afford it. Happily, the Citizens Advice/NPI

report does not propose this.

So, what to do?

RecommendationsThe report points out that:

“...in most other markets a mix of consumer

rights, licensing schemes and routes to

redress, make it hard to profit systematically

by selling a dud product. As things stand, the

housing market, the most important consumer

market of all, lags far behind.”

Curiously, there are no specific

recommendations in the report. However,

in its accompanying press release2, Citizens

Advice proposes that:

“Tenants should be entitled to rent refunds

where properties are dangerous or not fit to

live in.

existing print and mail set-up could be

improved. A significant number of documents

were being batch-printed in house on

departmental printers and there was no real

economy of scale despite the volumes that we

were regularly processing.”

We immediately set about re-engineering

the way that print files were received,

reconciled and printed. Previously, manual

intervention was often required to ensure

full integrity (particularly around large file

size documents) and the process was

unnecessarily labour intensive. Critiqom

introduced an automated workflow built

around a white-paper solution. Now, print jobs

come into Critiqom’s purpose built document

factory in Warrington, sent directly via a

secure web portal accessible to authorised

ARP staff only. Instead of matching data to

pre-printed templates, the entire document is

now printed directly onto plain white paper,

reducing manual labour, improving efficiency

and eliminating the need to store costly pre-

printed paper stock.

In addition to cost savings, any move to an

outbound solution could result in a reduction

of required office space to house equipment

and staff, along with delivering continuous

equipment and software upgrades.

The burdened costs of internal print

production are a hidden drain on resources.

Outsourcing everyday mail and print to a

specialist can drive out cost and free staff to

focus on their core front line tasks.

* example cost to show potential savings. Cost may vary between £0.30p and £0.34p depending on solution being used.

“A national landlord register should be set up.

This could help ensure landlords operating

illegally cannot move to different areas to

avoid legal action.

“Councils should also set up local licensing

to tackle specific issues in their private rental

markets. This could help to ensure landlords are

providing the quality of housing and service the

area needs and ensure tenants know what they

can expect from a good landlord.”

This is fine as far as it goes, but I would

argue that fundamentally, the problems of

overheating and poor quality in the private

rented sector require a rehabilitation of the

social rented sector as a desirable tenure,

along with a reversal of its numerical decline

and its drift towards higher rents. Reducing

the demand for private renting and offering a

viable alternative other than owner-occupation

would get at some of the roots of the problem.

I should say, to be fair, that this is not an

approach that resonated in the upper reaches

of Citizens Advice. I think it was seen as

‘Old Labour’, running against the grain of

government policy (even more so now, of

course) and rather expensive.

Nevertheless, politically unfashionable

solutions have their place, if only to keep an

important debate alive, so I shall stick to my

guns on this – and I strongly suspect that a

lot of advisers in Citizens’ Advice Bureaux and

other local advice centres (not to mention a

lot of tenants) would agree with me.

And HB and the rental element of UC would

be much better spent.

1 A nation of renters: how England moved from secure family homes towards rundown rentals, Citizens Advice & New Policy Institute, May 2015.

2 Citizens Advice, 21/5/15.

“ Even if the authority has some way of tracking the final postage total associated with mail of this nature, it is highly unlikely that related ‘burdened costs’ will be calculated.”

“ In the past, some commentators have suggested that HB should not be paid for substandard accommodation. However, this would in practice leave a lot of tenants still stuck where they are, but struggling even more to afford it.”

Credit notes

Burdened costs – or how to save over £1 per letter

Geoff Fimister offers first thoughts on the Queen’s Speech and comments on some new research

Ian Forster is Sales Director with Critiqom.

Critiqom are a supplier under Lot3 of the

Postal Goods and Services Framework

Agreement (RM1063) which relates directly to

the provision of off-site hybrid mail solutions

Geoff Fimister is Campaigns Officer

(Incomes) with RNIB and a writer on

benefit issues

Total burdened costs for documentsAverage cost

Visible hard costs – hardware, toner and inks, paper (plain and special), click charges, services and maintenance, power, etc.

30p

IS support and infrastructure – help desks, 2nd level support, installation, asset management, assessment, testing training, print servers, network connections, mainframe conversions, print formatting software, pre-processing equipment, etc.

8p

Administration and purchasing –product and services selection, internal requisitions, orders, billing, RFPs, storage, restocking, supplies service centers, inventory management, vendor relationship management, etc.

9p

Document production – end user production time/energy, waiting time, intervention activity, hand finishing, walking to copiers, fax machine interaction, etc.

38p

Document management – the ‘before and af ter’ process costs including filing, storing, indexing, COLD, scanning, binding, retrieving, mailroom functions, pre-printed forms, electronic forms, document creation, waste disposal, etc.

30p

Plus postage – average 36p per 2nd class frank*. 36p

Total burdened cost. £1.51

*This cost will be greater in reality as other post being issued 1st class

Back office processing

...Ian Forster provides the explanation

Collection & enforcement

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“ It enables them to look at outstanding debts and identifies larger debts or multiple debts at the touch of a button.”

Destin Solutions, Bury Council is now

able to collect debt data from dif ferent

parts of the council and consolidate it so

that recovery managers can make more

informed decisions on recovery approaches.

It enables them to look at outstanding debts

and identifies larger debts or multiple debts

at the touch of a button, ensuring not only

that Bury Council can maximise its recovery

resources, but also it means debt can be

collected more efficiently.

Councils can also take a smar ter approach

to informing citizens about their debt.

Rather than a customer receiving four or

f ive calls, texts, letters or visits from

dif ferent depar tments chasing for payment,

which can create more anxiety and stress,

one contact can be made providing a

total amount of debt owed and a more

considered approach applied.

This technology which Civica has now

become a main distributor for in the UK, can

be used not just to report on debt but also

to analyse it for more informed decision

making. By viewing trends and patterns

amongst customer debt and cross referencing

this with demographical information, councils

can start applying recovery approaches more

suited to the customer and start flagging

earlier on where potential problems may

arise. A typical example might be using

text messaging for payment reminders for

the under-25’s. Similarly, if analysis of debt

data uncovers that those citizens who live

in a specific postcode are twice as likely to

default on payment of council tax, recovery

teams could be more proactive in creating

more bespoke repayment terms or offering

incentives for earlier payment.

Ultimately, if councils can reduce the

amount of administrative costs and reduce

duplication of effort across the different

teams associated with recovery and

collection, these savings could be used

to invest in more ethical approaches to

According to Citizens Advice in a recent article

which appeared in the Guardian, the number

of council tax debt cases handled by the

charity has increased by 21% in the last year

to 193,000. Similarly the StepChange Debt Charity also reported a 372% increase in the

last five years of people contacting them who

have council tax arrears. The Guardian article

also reported that the increase in arrears

corresponded with the abolition of council

tax benefit in April 2013 and that seven out

of ten clients who were behind with council

tax payments had at least one other debt

problem too.

As the problem appears to show no signs

of abating, now might be the time to explore

some options for councils on how to take a

more considered approach to debt recovery

and collections. The first step in doing this

is to have a better understanding and all

round view of the debtor and the debt they

have built up across multiple areas within an

authority. This has been a challenge in the

past because you are dealing with multiple

systems and teams managing different types

of debt.

Thankfully technology has moved on, and

there are now tools which can be used to

harvest data from multiple debt systems, to

present a single view of debt in one portal.

Forward thinking authorities have bought into

this approach and are starting to reap the

rewards. Cameron Smith, Performance and

Policy Manager at Bury Council, comments,

“The council has a responsibility to collect

debt in an ethical way. If someone has

built up a lot of debt, it is important to take

account of their whole financial situation.

This provides you with information you

need to put together a repayment plan they

are more likely to meet, without causing

them additional hardship that could require

expensive support from elsewhere in the

public sector.”

Working with companies like Civica and

Collection & enforcement

Tracy McAVoy is Marketing Director

with Destin Solutions. Contact her on

[email protected] or go to

www.destin.co.uk

... is the way forward, says Tracy McAvoy

debt collection. Examples could be further

investment in analysis as to why the debt is

building up in the first instance, or whether

there are any commonalities across debtors.

Is there the potential to roll out new

initiatives, such as Bury Council have done,

to start charging more council tax on empty

properties? This could act as a supplement

for the debt which then needs to be written

off. Could the costs associated with chasing

up non-payment of council debt be forgone,

to remove additional pressure from debtors?

Similarly, could more high profile campaigns

be launched, encouraging potential debtors

to come forward in advance to admit they

may have a problem meeting payments and

to assist them in how to plan for financial

budgeting in future?

The issue of non-payment of council tax

is getting more and more air time in both

local and national press. Those councils

who can demonstrate they are taking a

more considered approach to recovery and

collection from citizens will not only win more

hearts and minds of residents, but if handled

in the right way may also be able to improve

on collection targets.

In last month’s issue, I examined the fee

structure provided by the new enforcement

legislation, and ventured to suggest that it

had been so far, so good. This month, in the

second and final part of this article, I shall

examine the application of the regulations

and subsequent recovery of fees from the

customer for enforcement-related services.

Are creditors satisfying themselves that this is

being adhered to?

Regulation 4 of The Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 stipulates

the fees that may be recovered from the

customer. Paragraph 3 states that the

enforcement agent may recover the whole

fee provided in the Schedule (TCE Act 2007)

for a stage where the amount outstanding is

paid after the commencement, but before the

completion, of that stage.

Regulation 5 goes on to explain what those

relevant stages are. While the application of

fees at the compliance stage and enforcement

stage should perhaps be more straightforward,

the area around the sale/disposal stage

has been a little hazy. Indeed, the Civil

Enforcement Association (CIVEA) was asked

to provide advice on the circumstances that

should exist prior to the application of a sale

stage fee. Regulation 5(c) says:

“The sale or disposal stage, which

comprises all activities relating to enforcement

from the first attendance at the property for

the purpose of transporting goods to the place

of sale, or from commencing preparation for

sale if the sale is to be held on the premises,

until the completion of the sale or disposal

(including application of the proceeds and

provision of the information required by

regulation 14).”

While it is impossible to give specific

guidance that covers every possible

eventuality, we know it is the position of CIVEA

and in accordance with the clear intention

of government, that a sale stage fee should

only be applied where positive action has

been taken to commence a removal. A mere

‘intention’ to remove should not be the

trigger for the application of the £110 sale

fee, as this could be considered as not being

in line with the spirit of the regulations and

likely to prompt intervention by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) – possibly being viewed as

an unintended consequence and a return to

the pre-TCE position which was regarded

as unacceptable.

The true aim of effective enforcement is

not to be punitive, but to engage with the

customer and obtain payment in the least

complicated, impartial manner possible.

Therefore, in reality, the occasions where

there is an actual

need to remove

(or begin to

remove) goods

owned by the

customer should

be few and far

between. In fact,

in council tax

cases in the first

year of the new

TCE regulations,

Rossendales

has actually

only applied the

£110 fee on ten

occasions, truly demonstrating that this should

be the exception rather than the rule.

Following representations, the MoJ was

persuaded to provide greater flexibility to

cater for the situation where a customer

wants to pay once a removal has

commenced, such as when a tow truck

arrives at the debtor’s premises. It was felt

that flexibility would reduce conflict, as the

requirement to complete the removal to

qualify for the fixed fee, when the customer

was willing to pay, could lead to complaints

and unnecessary confrontation.

It is worth pointing out that some

respondents to the original MoJ consultation

in 2012 voiced concerns that the sale

stage included the removal of goods and

transportation to the place of sale as well as a

number of required actions, including obtaining

a valuation. It would be naïve to assume that

the not so insignificant costs of actual removal,

insurances and costs of sale could adequately

be covered by the core activities included

within the £110 sale fee. However, there is the

buffer of the disbursements and exceptional

costs process built into the Taking Control of

Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 (regs 8,9 and

10) – over and above the normal costs such as

dealing with specialist or high value goods.

It is clear that a robust regulatory framework

is a vital component in setting standards

and achieving the correct balance between

the rights of the creditor and those of the

customer. We recognise that the enforcement

industry must continue to develop public

confidence, but whilst the political horizon

may be uncertain, it is also clear that there

are many reasons to feel positive about the

changes brought about by the TCE regulations.

“ Following representations, the MoJ were persuaded to provide greater flexibility to cater for the situation where a customer wants to pay once a removal has commenced, such as when a tow truck arrives at the debtor’s premises.”

James Mckillop concludes his two part examination of the effect of the new enforcement legislation fee structure

James Mckillop is a Business Development

Executive with Rossendales (part of the

Marston Group)

The sale fee should still be the exception rather than the rule

Taking a more considered approach to council tax recovery

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Producing more from less simplywon’t be achievableOutside my Salisbury hotel, the 800th

anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta

is being heralded around the city’s cathedral,

even as I write – a celebration of the balance

of power shifting, somewhat, from the

monarchy to the people all those years ago.

Ironic, therefore, that I should have been

reading about a fairly recent management

ideology that is known as ‘holacracy ’ – one

principle of which is that the organisation’s

head is subject to the same rules as everyone

else – a fundamental concept enshrined in the

Magna Carta by King John, establishing that

the monarch was no longer above the laws to

which its subjects are required to abide.

Holacracy is a system of organisational

governance in which authority and decision-

making are distributed throughout self-

organising teams, rather than in a traditional

management hierarchy. The idea is considered

to be the brainchild of US ICT entrepreneur

Brian J Robertson, who has applied his

philosophy to his own company organisation

structure. After all, how can you preach the

benefits of such a concept when you don’t

adopt its principles yourself?

My own musing was triggered by a thought

that effective leadership can be a little like

good customer service, in as much as we

cannot always identify precisely what it is but

we all know when we haven’t received it and,

equally, we all recognise it when it ’s evident.

This led me back to a perennial challenge for

me, understanding why some managers and

leaders persist in the overbearing desire to

micromanage and, in my opinion, stifle the

innovative and creative instincts they may have

within their teams.

As I have commented before, in a strict

command and control environment, staff

generally will do little more than is necessary

to get by. And, forgive me for repeating the

mantra once again, but producing more from

less simply won’t be achievable.

Mistakenly, holacracy has been described

as ‘no-one is in charge’. This is missing the

point. Ultimately, in any organisation, someone

has to be accountable, so there has to be a

chief. In my experience, it’s the insecure middle

managers that resort to micromanagement,

often feeling threatened instead of embracing

the talent at their disposal. This weakness

is overcome in a holacratic organisation, by

flattening the structure and limiting the impact

of middle managers.

My research led me to www.holacracy.org

where I discovered a small matrix (see chart

above). This suggests some of the fundamental

differences between a traditional organisation

and one that embraces ‘open allocation’

management structures – the premise upon

which holacracy is built.

The realisation is that an open allocation-

structured organisation is much more

likely to be flexible, therefore capable of

delivering customer need and responsive

to its environment, irrespective of how

frequently and how extensive market forces

change. Wrapped up in that culture will be a

willingness of staff to fully engage, in return

for the extra freedom that holacracy inherently

provides for a workforce.

It ’s not rocket science, and is aligned with

the Psychological Contract that Edgar Schein

has described exists between employer and

employee. In other words, the extent to which

both parties feel that they are benefiting from

the ‘relationship’ will have a direct bearing

on the extent to which either party is prepared

to go that extra mile.

Clearly, such a model as is outlined above

is more likely to fit with a private sector

organisation, but that’s not to say that it would

not work in a public sector organisation.

Corporately, the decision may be out of

your hands, but there’s no reason why the

principles could not be applied at service level.

I’ve only scratched the surface of holacracy

here but my point is this. If you try and

squeeze every last drop of moisture from a

sponge, it takes enormous effort. Likewise,

actively squeezing your workforce will require

similar effort.

However, if you view them as a sparkling

refreshment, just a gentle shake may be all

that’s needed for them to explode into life.

Have the courage to relinquish some control

and release that energy with a little shake up

– much as King John released the energy of

the Great British public and, maybe, was the

catalyst to all that we have achieved in the last

800 years. That could be your legacy!

“ This led me back to a perennial challenge for me, understanding why some managers and leaders persist in the overbearing desire to micromanage .”

Management

You need to get a little holacracy into your workplace, Sean Langley suggests

Sean Langley FIRRV is a benefits

and revenues consultant, and author of

©The phat Controller (A Leadership

Handbook). Go to www.seanlangley.co.uk

TRADITIONAL HIERARCHICAL BUREAUCRACY OPEN ALLOCATION HOLACRACY

Job descriptionsEach person has just one job. Job descriptions are imprecise, rarely updated, and often irrelevant.

RolesRoles are defined around the work, not people, and are updated regularly. People fill several roles.

Delegated authorityManagers loosely delegate authority. Ultimately, their decisions always trump.

Distributed authorityAuthority is truly distributed to teams and roles. Decisions are made locally.

Big re-organisationsThe organisational structure is rarely revisited, mandated from the top.

Rapid iterationsThe organisational structure is regularly updated via small iterations. Every team self-organises.

Office politicsImplicit rules slow down change and favour people ‘in the know’.

Transparent rulesEveryone is bound by the same rules, CE included. Rules are visible to all.

IRRV Professional Meetings


T: 020 7691 8987

W: www.irrv.net/conferences

Completion Notices5 November 2015—London • 3 December 2015—Manchester

This Professional Meeting is aimed at those working within both Local Government and the Private Sector. It will focus on the importance of serving completion notices for Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rate, when (and when not) they are served, how they are served and the options then available to the owner, billing authority and valuation / listing officer. There will be an Open Forum in the afternoon where delegates can raise issues with the speakers. This meeting will be delivered by Gary Watson, Deputy Chief Executive, IRRV and Gordon McKay, Local Authority Relationship Manager, VOA.

Please visit our website to book your place.

Fees:

IRRV Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £135 plus VATBAS/Forum/Organisational Member . . . . . . . . . . . £165 plus VATNon Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £195 plus VAT

Special Offer:

3 for 2 on mutiple bookings** Delegates must be from the same organisation in order to receive this offer. The lowest fee will not be charged.

FINAL DATES CONFIRMED

•

IRRV Training Days


T: 020 7691 8987

W: www.irrv.net/trainingdays

• IntroductiontoBusinessRates–Janet Alexander IRRV (Hons) 21 September, London

• IntroductiontoCouncilTax–Janet Alexander IRRV (Hons) 22 September, London

• RoleoftheCouncilattheMagistratesCourt–Gary Watson IRRV (Hons) 19 October, London 22 October, Manchester 3 November, Hinckley

• BusinessRatesMasterClass–Janet Alexander IRRV (Hons) 16 & 17 November, London

• CouncilTaxMasterClass–Janet Alexander IRRV (Hons) 23 & 24 November, London

Fees: Introduction MasterClassIRRV Member £125 plus VAT £240 plus VATBAS/Forum/Organisational Member £155 plus VAT £300 plus VATNon Member £185 plus VAT £360 plus VAT

SpecialOffer:

3for2onmultiplebookings** Delegates must be from the same organisation in order to receive this offer

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Adopting a shared value approach

Changes in capital fundingWith the decline of public funding for social

housing, many associations are seeking new,

more cost-effective ways of borrowing for

capital projects. Private debt finance going into

housing supply has historically come from two

main sources – conventional corporate loans

provided by banks and other

financial institutions, and

bond finance (either publicly

listed or privately placed).

Until recently, in the

housing association sector,

banks made long-term

finance (up to 30 years)

available at competitive

rates. For those associations

whose balance sheets

were modestly geared, this

conventional corporate debt

was the most cost-effective

way of borrowing money to

fund growth, development

and the acquisition of new

homes. In recent years long-

term debt finance has become more difficult

to acquire and its costs have risen significantly.

Banks are coming under considerable

regulatory pressure and are being encouraged

to match the lifetime of their assets with their

liabilities. This has resulted in a shift in the

profile of their lending away from long-term

loans towards shorter or medium term finance

of five to seven years.

Where long-term corporate debt remains

available, lenders may demand an ability to

re-price at intervals above five years and for

many associations this represents a financial

risk that they are unwilling to take. Refinancing

introduces a degree of uncertainty that makes

long-term planning problematic. There is

now evidence that the funding of affordable

housing is moving towards a divided position,

with the banks providing short-term finance

(which could be on an individual project basis)

In 2015, for the first time in living memory,

a General Election was not seen as a ‘two-horse’ race between Labour and the

Conservatives. A number of commentators

have argued that something fundamental has

changed in British politics and the old ‘two party plus one’ system is now a thing of the

past. It is said that from now on we will have

to get used to the idea that more than two

parties will have post-election parliamentary

influence. Formal or informal coalition

arrangements have, it is said, become ‘the new normal’.

The first time I heard the phrase ‘the new

normal’ was not in the context of party politics,

but as a description of the changed conditions

within which housing associations have

to function. Speaking at a dinner for housing

association chairs in 2013, Roy Irwin,

the former chief inspector for the Audit

Commission, argued that the political and

economic climate in which associations now

operate has changed permanently and, as a

result, they will have to rethink their policies

and alter their practices to match what is now

a fundamentally new operating environment.

Change brings with it opportunities as well

as threats. Those social landlords that see the

future as some form of modified projection

of the past are unlikely to prosper in the new

climate. On the other hand, those that respond

appropriately to the new challenges have an

opportunity to redefine their missions and

alter their practices in ways that could enhance

their roles within the overall housing system.

Significant changes are already occurring on

two broad fronts. Firstly, housing associations

are diversifying into new areas of service

provision. Secondly, new ways of funding

are being sought. These two changes are

clearly inter-related.

Changes in functionFalling grant rates have provided a stimulus

to some social landlords to generate new

and the capital markets and wider institutional

investors becoming an important source of

long-term funding. These changes to capital

financing clearly bring up questions about how

the financial institutions would react to any

extensions to the ‘right to buy ’ that include

assets in which they have a debt interest.

Bond finance is already established as an

important element of housing association

funding. There appears to be a good appetite

for this provision from the market. Some

£4.4 bn. was invested in social housing via

public and private placement bond issues

in 2012, bringing the total for the sector to

above £12bn. by 2013. The Housing Finance Corporation already acts as a conduit for

the sector, enabling smaller and medium

sized associations to access the markets in

an indirect way by aggregating their individual

funding requirements to an amount that is

acceptable to the market.

Redefining the role of housing associations: the emerging idea of ‘shared value’Based on research and analysis carried out at

the Harvard Business School, new ideas are

revenue streams in order to maintain their

services and underpin their development

programmes. These new sources of revenue

are utilised to cross-subsidise their social

housing activities. Building on their existing

strengths, some associations have now set up

commercial profit-seeking companies in fields

such as facilities management and private property lettings.

The changing nature of subsidy support , coupled with recent developments around

tenure restructuring (e.g. the requirement

to provide ‘af fordable’ homes let at up to

80% of market rent and threats to extend

the ‘right to buy’), have led some social

housing agencies to consider diversifying

horizontally around the traditional core

business of a social landlord. This might

be regarded more as ‘growth’ rather

than ‘diversification’. It can be achieved

through internal expansion or external merger or some form of legal partnering agreement . Some social landlords earn

fees by managing homes built or owned by

private landlords or another social agency.

Some have purchased proper ties outright

from an existing landlord. Others have used

private sector renting to cross-subsidise

af fordable housing programmes.

Although an increasing number of housing

associations are moving into market renting,

emerging about the appropriate relationship

between business and society. Many firms

declare a commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). This can be thought of

as an approach to business that actively seeks

to make a positive contribution to society. In

practice the term can refer to a wide range

of actions that companies may take, from

donating to charity to reducing carbon emissions. The Harvard approach argues for

the efficacy of instigating more fundamental

changes in business thinking and suggests

that in the political and commercial climate

following the financial crisis of the late 1980s,

successful companies need to review their

relationships with society. The criticism of

CSR is that it does not represent a full cultural

commitment to being a valued part of society

but rather that it maintains an ‘old-fashioned’

(and increasingly inappropriate) view of

nineteenth and twentieth century benevolent

capitalism. By failing to embed the creation

of social value into the business plan, the

advocates of shared value argue that the ‘good

works’ of the corporately responsible firm are

little more than ‘bolt-ons’ to their traditional

ways of working.

Social organisations and government

entities often see success solely in terms

of the external (e.g. community) benefits

achieved or the money expended. The

concept of shared value can be defined as,

‘policies and operating practices that enhance

the competitiveness of a company while

simultaneously advancing the economic

and social conditions in the communities in

which it operates.’ This approach moves away

from a business model in which the firm

donates a small proportion of its distributable

profits to ‘good causes’ to one in which

proper recognition is given to the fact that

the addressing of societal concerns yields

direct productivity benefits to the firm itself.

Housing associations are particularly well

placed to adopt a shared value approach to

their business activities. Indeed, a number of

associations are at the forefront of developing

a model of business culture that is grounded

in the notion of shared value. In so doing,

they are beginning to strengthen their

business identities and are thereby defining

a clearer role for the movement in the twenty

first century.

for most that do, it currently represents a

relatively small part of their turnover and

asset base. Within the sector, however, there

is an emerging debate about the efficacy of

housing associations entering the sector in a

more aggressive and wholehearted fashion.

Given the resurgence of private renting (which

is now at least as large as the social rented

sector) and the debate about its need to

be supported and reformed (e.g. the 2012

Montague Report), some in the housing

association movement believe the time is right

for social landlords to utilise their experience

and expertise to provide ethically managed quality rented homes at full market rent.

Because business diversification carries

financial and reputational dangers, it is a

growth strategy that needs to be based on

market research and careful analysis that

considers its exposure to new risks and the

organisation’s capacity to operate effectively in

the wider field. The process of diversification

can also require subtle adjustments to the

corporate culture that need to be understood

and agreed prior to its introduction. Regulators

are now advising that most ‘non-core’

activities (i.e. everything except social

housing) should be carried out by a separate

internal entity and be ‘ring-fenced’ from social

housing so that if the non-core activity should

fail, the social housing will not be put at risk.

It also suggests that every social housing

provider above a certain size should prepare a

‘living will’, setting out how, if the business

fails as a whole, its affairs will be wound up in

a way that protects its social housing assets.

By providing a range of community services

such as grounds maintenance and parallel

agencies for home buyers and private

landlords, many housing associations are,

in effect, redefining themselves as ‘social businesses’ rather than as simply ‘social landlords’. Like all businesses, housing

associations need to consider how best to

finance growth and development.

“ This can be thought of as an approach to business that actively seeks to make a positive contribution to society. In practice the term can refer to a wide range of actions that companies may take, from donating to charity to reducing carbon emissions.”

“ This might be regarded more as ‘growth’ rather than ‘diversification’. It can be achieved through internal expansion or external merger or some form of legal partnering agreement.”

David Garnett explores the changing role of today’s housing association

David Garnett is an author and expert on

housing issues. His book, A-Z of Housing

(Professional Keywords) is due for release

in July. Go to http://www.amazon.co.uk/Housing-Professional-Keywords-David-Garnett/dp/1137366737

Housing exposed

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Are people really willing to help?

The public sector faces a big financial

challenge, yet demand for services is still

rising. Our company’s ‘People Power’ report

looks at whether the public can do more to

support cost effective public services.

In recent years, the digital revolution has

made a big difference to the quality and

cost effectiveness of public services and

government continues to shift as many

services as it can online. At the same time,

it is looking to devolve power and encourage

more and more people to volunteer and to

actively support public services in their

local communities.

These policies might seem incompatible

at first, but the digital world continues to

change the relationship between people

and government, so we wanted to take a

closer look.

Research commissionedWe commissioned research with civil servants,

our clients and the public to see if we might

combine digital services with people’s

willingness to make a contribution and make

public services cheaper as well as better.

We found that out of 1,317 civil servants

who responded to a survey by Dods Research,

84% agreed that a more active contribution

from the public could improve public services

and 65% that it can cut costs.

This was not because volunteers would

replace salaried staff, but because it would

enable a better understanding of local

conditions, making it easier to target services

and prevent problems escalating. Our clients

agreed. From councils to health bodies,

housing providers and the police, staying

close to communities was seen as essential

to providing insight on what works best and

many were considering how to increase

their involvement.

Two local authorities were considering

which services might be run by communities.

A police force felt that the cost of policing

IntroductionIn the last article we covered some of the

difficulties in importing large data sets into

Excel and some of the ways in which this may

be overcome. It also raised the important

issue of data cleansing – that is making

sure that the data is in a suitable format for

analysis. In this article and the accompanying

Excel workbook we shall examine some of the

data cleansing issues.

Excel utilitiesBefore looking at the issue of data cleansing

it is worth looking at an ‘add-in’ to Excel which

can make the whole process somewhat easier

to undertake.

ASAP Utilities: http://www.asap-utilities.com/

This is probably one of the most useful sets

of utilities for any Excel user, with the added

advantage that it is free for personal users,

though the program has to be replaced/re-

downloaded every year. A perpetual licence

can be purchased.

I would recommend that you install this

free add-in, as it will be referred to and used

in this article.

Sources of informationThere are three websites that you may find as

being particularly useful for the subject:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/MainPage.aspxThe Chip Pearson website contains a wealth

of information dealing with how to undertake

various common tasks in Excel. It has a very

comprehensive index and contains many

example formula, code, etc.

http://www.contextures.com/index.html The Debra Dalgleish website specialises in

pivot tables, data validation, data tables, as well

as other topics. The site contains a wealth of

examples and spreadsheets to download. She

has also developed the Power Pivot Premium

add-in, which is recommended above.

http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/ This website specialises in charting. Like the

others mentioned in this section, it contains

many examples which can be downloaded.

would go down as people got more engaged.

A housing association was looking to increase

the number of volunteering opportunities and

a health body was considering how to involve

patients and carers in raising the performance

of surgeons and hospitals.

Are people willing to help?But the key question was, are people really

willing to help? We asked Survation to run an

opinion poll asking what contribution people

were already making to public services on a

voluntary basis and what would encourage

them to do more.

More people had shared a police crime

alert on social media than the number of

special constables and magistrates combined,

although they probably wouldn’t class

themselves as volunteers. Many people had

reported problems to the authorities and many

more were happy to do so if it was easier –

Other sites I regularly refer to include:

Contextures: http://www.contextures.com/index.htmlChandoo: http://chandoo.org/wp/Daily Dose of Excel: http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/AJP Excel Information: http://andypope.info/index.htmAndrew’s Excel Tips: http://andrewexcel.blogspot.com/p/excel-tips.htmlApplication Professionals: http://www.appspro.com/Beyond Excel: https://sites.google.com/site/beyondexcel/homeBusiness Functions: http://www.businessfunctions.com/index.phpCharts: http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/charts/index.htmlExcel: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htmDatabison: http://www.databison.com/E90E50: https://sites.google.com/site/e90e50/ExcelTables.com: http://exceltables.com/FormXL Pro – VBA101:http://www.vba101.com/formxl-pro/Karl E. Peterson’s Classic VB Code: http://vb.mvps.org/Stephen Bullen’s Excel Page: http://www.oaltd.co.uk/Excel/Pearson Software Consulting: http://www.cpearson.com/excel/MainPage.aspxPeltier Technical Services, Inc.: http://www.peltiertech.com/Ron’s Excel Tips: http://www.rondebruin.nl/tips.htmThe Spreadsheet Guru: http://www.thespreadsheetguru.com/The Spreadsheet Page: http://spreadsheetpage.com/Trump Excel: http://trumpexcel.com/about/ Tushar-Mehta: http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/Vertex42 – Excel Templates, Tutorials & Software: http://www.vertex42.com/

around 3% of people said they had reported

fraud and 15% said they would consider it

in future.

This is all valuable public participation

and we could do with more of it. If policy

makers looked at people power as a spectrum

then they might target resources differently,

understanding which activities are encouraged

relatively easily online and which are best

done at a grassroots level.

Two way conversationsIn our report, we recommend making it easy

to contribute, encouraging more two way

conversations and staying focused on local

activity, although when we asked civil servants

about whether devolution would encourage a

more active contribution from the public, the

results were mixed.

Those who felt it would help (39%)

suggested that people would be more likely to

engage with local issues. The 33% who felt it

would not help were concerned with possible

cost escalation and differences in provision.

Yet with devolution at the heart of the

government’s reform programme, this seems

a great opportunity to look at how we can

reshape the nature of engagement with

public services.

It is clear people are willing to help –

we just need to find the right way to unlock

the potential.

‘People Power’ can be downloaded at

www.northgatepublicservices.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/People-power-

cost-effective-public-participation-April-2015.pdf

Data cleansingTypically, data is published in formats that

can be read by a range of common programs

– text (*.txt), tab delimited (*.tab), comma

delimited (*.csv) or Excel (*.xls, or *.xlsx).

A problem often encountered is that the

data, regardless of the format, will not import

into Excel as one would have wished.

It is preferable to clean the data as far

as possible before attempting any analysis.

Often it is possible to clean data as a whole,

though sometimes some data may require

individual attention.

Typical issues include:

• additional spaces at the start or end of

cells. This can cause problems with the

cell contents being interpreted incorrectly

(numbers regarded as text, for example)

or problems in filtering and sorting

• multiple spaces between words. This again

can cause problems in filtering data when the

additional space causes that two apparently

similar terms or values to be treated as two

distinct ones

• inappropriate number of spaces between words

• dates incorrectly displayed

• inappropriate capitalisation of words

• duplicate data

• general inconsistent formatting issues.

It is highly recommended that time is spent

cleaning the data at the start, as it will save

time and angst later one.

Before attempting to clean data, firstly

ensure that you have a back-up of the data.

It is not uncommon that cleansing may have

expected consequences and sometimes ‘undo’

will not reinstate the data to its original shape.

It is also good practice to format each

column to the appropriate format prior to

starting, though some operations may also

change the format.

Further readingAn expanded version of this article and

accompanying workbook is available for

download on the Institute’s website. This will

cover many issues of data cleansing in more

detail and will demonstrate how some of the

issues may be overcome.

“ These policies might seem incompatible at first, but the digital world continues to change the relationship between people and government, so we wanted to take a closer look.”

Customer service

Sue Holloway describes the advantages of unlocking the potential of ‘People Power’

Sue Holloway is Director of Services Strategy

with Northgate Public Services

Peter Brown was formerly Professor of Property

Taxation at Liverpool John Moores University

Peter Brown continues his new series designed to help readers get around the tricky bits of data handling and analysis

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Pursuit of costs may mean winning the battle

High Court appeal against the magistrates,

despite the fact the Trust was going to pay

the bill.

Considering the matter, the Court observed

that the failure to accept the offer had serious

consequences, stating however that the

jurisdictional point only arises because the

council were not prepared to accept payment

of council tax from somebody other than

Mr Piggin himself. Notwithstanding they had

won the appeal, the Court decided that the

council was not entitled to its costs from

Mr Piggin, “as the whole process could have

been avoided by some common sense being

exercised at a much earlier stage”. Effectively,

if the council had accepted the offer the sum

would have been paid before the matter ever

got near the High Court.

The result is a reminder that all courts

have a wide discretion on costs. Accordingly,

they may refuse an award of costs where

one part has acted unreasonably or caused

unnecessary litigation or prolonged it, or failed

to accept a full settlement.

It should be remembered that the aim of

the civil justice system – of which council tax

is a part, albeit crude in comparison with the

County Court and High Court – is a means to

an end. That end is the settlement of disputes

without recourse to a hearing. Judges at all

levels much prefer it and are keen to see legal

costs limited as part of the administration

of justice. Fighting cases purely on points

of principle is not welcome at any level,

and anyone attempting such a course must

proceed cautiously.

One might have thought that local

authorities had realised the dangers of

pursuing litigation endlessly a quarter of a

The penalty for pursuing a liability order at any

cost has been illustrated in a number of cases

in the last few years, and notably in the High

Court in Wiltshire Council v Piggin (2014)

CO 40116 2 December 2014.

This appeal shows the danger of pressing

enforcement action too far and insisting on

trying to obtain a liability order on every

occasion, and the danger of ploughing on in

litigation, even with a very strong case.

The case arose from an appeal by

Wiltshire Council by way of case stated to

the High Court. The council appealed against

the decision of the South East Wiltshire

Magistrates’ Court on 13th May 2013 not to

make liability against a Mr Michael Piggin over

unpaid council tax in relation to a property in

Salisbury. The sum in question was £1,849.24

for the period from 1st July 2011 to 2nd

November 2012. Mr Piggin appeared in person

at the High Court, whilst wisely the South East

Wiltshire Magistrates’ Court did not appear.

Mr Piggin’s argument had been that the

council tax due on the dwelling was paid by

a trust (essentially, this was a dispute over

liability and the name which should have

appeared on the bill). At the Magistrates’

Court, Mr Piggin raised this as a defence to

the liability order application, drawing the

attention of the Bench to the fact that he was

the non-resident registered owner of property.

The Bench found that Mr Piggin was a trustee

of MC Trust (which existed for the benefit

of his children) and that the trust was the

beneficial owner of the property. At the time

of the liability order hearing Mr Piggin had an

outstanding appeal to the Valuation Tribunal

for England (VTE) over the issue of liability

and accordingly the magistrates rejected the

application for a liability order.

The council appealed to the High Court

against this decision, on the basis that the

liability dispute should not have been dealt

with at the hearing and that this was a matter

for the VTE, as prescribed by Regulation

century ago, for example, in 1989 Re Smith (A Bankrupt) ex parte Braintree District Council [1990] 2 AC 215. Braintree contested

an appeal to the House of Lords concerning an

already bankrupt ratepayer over committal to

prison, purely it seems to establish committal

as punishment for defaulting. Some late

Victorian and Edwardian precedents seemed

to indicate a punitive element to bankruptcy,

but how this would actually make money for

Braintree Council was unclear – it seems it

was a point of principle to somebody on

the council.

However, the House of Lords refused to

follow earlier authority and decided to exercise

its discretion it awarded itself from 1966 to

depart from previous decisions. It decided to

rule that the Edwardian precedents no longer

applied and that the enforcement process was

entirely coercive when it came to committal

– only to be applied when the person had

assets as established by a means enquiry but

was still refusing or failing to pay (confirmed

in R v Poole Magistrates’ Court ex parte Benham (1991) 156 JP 157). Consequently,

high costs were awarded against Braintree for

a contested appeal that was never going to

result in any money in any event.

At the other end of the scale, I have

encountered similar situations in the

magistrates’ court, when an authority has

refused to take money for ‘administrative convenience’ and insisting on getting a

liability order. However, I am afraid that this

often does not impress magistrates and

an authority may be penalised in costs.

‘Administrative convenience’ is not

acceptable as an excuse for turning down an

acceptable offer, refusing cash presented prior

57(1) of the Council Tax (Administration

and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 S.I

613. In essence, it became an appeal on a

jurisdictional point.

At the High Court, Williams J swiftly agreed

with the council, notwithstanding conflicting

Divisional Court authorities. The magistrates

had been wrong to refuse the liability order

on the grounds that they did – the question

of whether Mr Piggin or MC Trust should pay

was one for the VTE, not the magistrates.

The Court held, “It doubtless would have

been sensible on ... for the magistrates at that

point to have adjourned any consideration of

liability to await the outcome of what were

then extant First Tier Tribunal proceedings.

Insofar as any appeal process remains in

train when the magistrates come to consider

it again, then doubtless they will consider

it sensible to await the conclusion of that

appeal process. That is a matter for them to

judge. All that I determine is that the decision

they made on 13th May 2013 was outside

their jurisdiction.”

From Wiltshire Council’s point of view, the

High Court had agreed with its argument

and it was duly ordered that the magistrates

should look at the case again. So far, so good!

However, it is what happened next in the

appeal which was to prove the most significant

outcome. Having won its point, Wiltshire

Council applied for costs, against Mr Piggin.

Now had Mr Piggin had the benefit of proper

advice before the High Court appeal he might

well have decided to follow the example of

the magistrates and not make an appearance,

unless he had a novel or sophisticated legal

objection to present.

Normally, the rule in litigation is that

‘costs follow the event’ and that the

loser pays the costs of the winner. As the

magistrates had not attended the hearing or

taken part in it, they were not at risk of having

a costs order against them – nothing perverse

or irrational could be shown about their error

to court, or simple irrationality or laziness.

Even where a council may ultimately

succeed in obtaining a liability order it

may find the magistrates refusing a costs

application for maladministration.

In one case I was involved with in 2011, a

local authority pursued a lady whom they had

already bankrupted for council tax for a sum

of £348 on a technical point. I defended her

and summonses against her were thrown out

twice, but still the council concerned came

back. After nearly a year of adjournments,

stops and starts, eventually the council turned

up some evidence that she was no longer

bankrupt and had been discharged (having

been forced to move, she had never learned

of this, correspondence having gone to her old

address from which she had been evicted).

Eventually in 2013 the local authority were

able to prove their case and then decided

to present a bill for costs for over £800.

However, the magistrates’ court reviewing

the history of the case decided these were

excessive in the circumstances, awarding only

£200. So effectively the local authority, on

its own figures, had spent more on a case

than the historic liability was worth – a pyrrhic

victory. It proved that although you may win

the battle you can ultimately lose the war, at

least in financial terms. Discretion should be

the watchword, particularly with legal appeals,

for as Shakespeare’s put it in Measure for

Measure, “It is excellent to have a giant’s

strength, but it is tyrannous to use it as a

giant”. It can be costly too!

of law so they were not exposed to costs (see

R v Newcastle Under Lyme Magistrates’ Court [1995] 1 All ER 125). However, Mr

Piggin had attended the High Court and

argued against the appeal. So Wiltshire Council

wanted a costs order against him. The council

wanted the sum of £3,182, to be precise, and

the Court found this ‘relatively modest’ by

the standard of High Court costs.

However, in deciding whether costs should

be awarded, the Court took into consideration

the wider circumstances and, in particular,

the history of the case and the conduct of

both sides. It seemed that Mr Piggin did not

have much money himself, and the trust was

to safeguard such assets as his family had,

and himself. Most importantly, it identified

that Mr Piggin had actually offered to pay the

sum owed in council tax at an earlier stage,

including paying it in cash to settle the matter

at the liability order stage. Unfortunately,

the evidence accepted by the Court showed

that that this offer had not been taken up

by Wiltshire Council, who had proceeded

to appeal.

From this, he developed an argument

against the costs order being made against

him. Mr Piggin further explained that after the

hearing, he immediately wrote on behalf of the

MC Trust as trustee requesting a bill directed

to either the Trust or himself as Trustee,

stating that on receipt of the bill it would be

paid in full within seven days. However, the

council had decided neither to take the money

nor respond to the offer to pay.

Williams J asked the obvious question –

“Why did not the council say to the court,

‘Well, here is the offer. We will adjourn these

proceedings for a month to see if this money

is forthcoming and then if it is, well, these

enforcement proceedings frankly will be

academic. I mean, we may not agree that MC

Trusts are liable, but what does it matter? We

have got our cash.’”

Instead, the council had commenced their

“ Some late Victorian and Edwardian precedents seemed to indicate a punitive element to bankruptcy, but how this would actually make money for Braintree Council was unclear – it seems it was a point of principle to somebody on the council.”

“ The magistrates had been wrong to refuse the liability order on the grounds that they did - the question of whether Mr Piggin or MC Trust should pay was one for the VTE, not the magistrates.”

Legal view

...but you may ultimately lose the war, warns Alan Murdie

Alan Murdie is a Barrister

��

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Budget 2015

Business• Corporation tax is to be cut to 19% in 2017

and 18% in 2020

• the permanent ‘non-dom’ status is to be

abolished from April 2017 – anyone who

has lived in the UK for 15 of the past 20

years will pay the same level of tax as other

UK citizens

• £7.2bn is to be raised from the clampdown

on tax avoidance and tax evasion, with

HMRC’s budget increased by £750m

• the bank levy rate is to be gradually reduced

over the next six years and a new 8%

surcharge on bank profits introduced from

January 2016

• there will be a cap on charges imposed

by claims management companies and an

increase in insurance premium tax to 9.5%

from November

• there will be a new apprenticeship levy for

large employers

• the climate change levy exemption for

renewable electricity is to be removed

• the National Insurance employment

allowance for small firms is to be increased

by 50% to £3,000 from 2016

• the dividend tax credit is to be replaced

with a new tax free allowance of £5,000 on

dividend income. Rates of dividend tax are to

be set at 7.5%, 32.5% and 38.1%.

Housing/infrastructure/ transport/regions• control over fire services, planning and children’s

services is to be handed to a consortium of ten

councils in Greater Manchester

• discussions on devolution of services to

Sheffield, Liverpool and West Yorkshire are

to be held

• the award of £30m for a new body,

Transport for North, to promote integrated

transport – including the use of Oyster cards

– in the north of England

• the ‘rent-a-room’ relief scheme will rise

to £7,500.

The quest for digitally enabled services goes onAccording to a report in Public Finance, the

Local Digital Alliance, which includes the

Department for Communities and Local

Government (DCLG), the Local Government

Association, the Society of Local Authority

Chief Executives, CIPFA and the Society of

Council IT Managers, is working on proposals

to make local services in England more

digitally enabled.

The Alliance has been working to

identify good practice and highlight further

opportunities for digital working, following a

request in the March Budget for joint proposals

from the sector in time to inform future budget

allocations.

Discussions and workshops to date have

revealed a need to generate better baseline

comparators, develop a deeper understanding

of how digital can be used to support

complex service interventions and strengthen

leadership and capability in the field.

The Deputy Director of Digital and

Corporate Communications at DCLG, said:

“Local government has a long track record in

successfully harnessing digital technologies

to drive innovation and deliver better, more

efficient services; but this good practice is not

yet uniform across the sector.”

In order to capture some comparable baseline

information required, council chief executives

are being asked to complete a survey.

SummaryThe major emphasis of this budget has been

the government’s objective of cutting £12bn

from the welfare budget. So what does this

mean to benefit claimants:

• only the lowest-income families will be able

to claim tax credits. Together with changes to

entitlement to UC, this will cut £2.9bn from

the welfare bill in the next financial year and

£3.4bn a year by 2020/21. For example,

the income threshold for tax credits is to be

reduced from £6,420 to £3,850

• larger families will be particularly hit by tax

credit changes if they have children from April

2017. Claimants will see child tax credits and

UC limited to the first two children. At present

about 870,000 families claiming tax credits

have three or more children - about one in

five families receive tax credit. However, it will

only be those larger families making a claim,

or having more children, from April 2017 that

will be affected

• in addition, many working age benefits will

be frozen for four years, such as tax credits

and local housing allowance, but excluding

maternity pay and disability benefits. This is a

cut to the welfare bill of £4bn by 2020/21

• the benefits cap – the maximum amount a

household can receive in benefits - will be

reduced. For those living outside of London

it will drop to £20,000. For those living in

London, where housing costs are higher, the

cap will be £23,000.

In 2013 the government capped the amount

of benefit families could receive at £500 per

week, or £26,000 a year. Only a tiny fraction

of benefit recipients got more than that –

27,000 families. It saved an amount equivalent

to £100 million - which may sound a lot, but

it ’s less than half a per cent of the welfare bill.

Of those 27,000 some suffered large cuts

in their housing benefit – up to £46 a week.

So were they induced by this stick to go back

to work? A study by the Department for Work

Budget 2015The Press was full of doom and gloom about

the July budget prior to the event – particularly

in relation to welfare benefits – so what is the

reality:

Personal taxation and pay• the introduction of a new national living

wage for all workers aged over 25, starting

at £7.20 an hour from April 2016 and set to

reach £9 by 2020 – giving an estimated 2.5

million people an average £5,000 rise over

five years

• the Low Pay Commission is to advise on

future changes to the rate

• the inheritance tax threshold will increase to

£1m, phased in from 2017

• the annual personal allowance, at which

people start paying tax, to rise to £11,000

next year

• plans are to raise the personal allowance to

£12,500 by 2020, so that people working 30

hours a week on the minimum wage do not

pay income tax

• the point at which people start paying

income tax at 40p is to rise from £42,385 to

£43,000 next year

• mortgage interest relief for buy-to-let

homebuyers is to be restricted to the basic

rate of income tax.

• the new national living wage will have a

major impact on local government budgets

and comes at a time when budgets are

under extreme pressure because of the cuts

over the past few years.

Welfare and pensions• tax credits and Universal Credit (UC) are to

be restricted to two children, affecting those

born after April 2017

• the income threshold for tax credits is to be

reduced from £6,420 to £3,850

• rents in the social housing sector will be

reduced by 1% a year for the next four years

• subsidies for social housing will be phased

out, with local authority and housing

and Pensions, supervised by the Institute of

Fiscal Studies (IFS), found that a minority were

indeed induced to go back to work. But in

spite of being made up to £46 a week poorer,

the majority did not.

The IFS concluded, “For this majority, it

remains an open question as to how they

adjusted to what were, in many cases, very

large reductions in their income.”

association tenants in England who earn

more than £30,000 – or £40,000 in London

– having to pay up to the market rent

• disability benefits will not be taxed or means-

tested while the state pension ‘triple lock’ is

to be protected

• Employment and Support Allowance

payments for claimants deemed able to

prepare for work is to be ‘aligned’ with

Jobseeker’s Allowance for new claimants

• a Green Paper will be published on

proposals for ‘a radical change’ to pension

saving systems

• the amount people can contribute to

their pension tax free is to be reduced for

individuals with incomes over £150,000,

including pension contributions

• the cost of funding free TV licences for the over-

75s will be transferred from the government to

the BBC between 2018 and 2021

• the annual household benefit cap will be

reduced to £23,000 in London and to

£20,000 in the rest of Britain

• 18-21-year-olds will not be entitled to claim

housing benefit automatically, with a new

‘earn to learn’ obligation

• working age benefits are to be frozen for

four years – including tax credits and local

housing allowance – but maternity pay and

disability benefits are exempted.

Public borrowing/deficit/spending• the deficit is to be cut at the same pace as

during the last Parliament

• borrowing is set to fall from £69.5bn this

year to £43.1bn, £24.3bn and £6bn before

reaching a £10bn surplus in 2019/20

• debt as a share of GDP is to fall from 80.3%

this year to 79.1%, 77.2%, 74.7%, 71.5%

and 68.5% in successive years

• the 1% public sector pay rise is to continue

for the next four years

• there will be £37bn of further spending cuts

by 2020, including £12bn of welfare cuts

and £5bn from tax avoidance.

“The new national living wage will have a major impact on local government budgets and comes at a time when budgets are under extreme pressure because of the cuts over the past few years.”

“ In order to capture some comparable baseline information required, council chief executives are being asked to complete a survey.”

Doherty’s despatchDoherty’s despatch

Pat Doherty is back with a guide to the parts of the 2015 Budget that touch on our profession

Pat Doherty FIRRV CPFA is an

independent consultant and a Past President

of the IRRV. If you wish to comment on

anything in this article, please email him

at [email protected]

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Thinking aboutrecruiting?

I’ve been thinking a bit about recruitment

over the last few weeks, as we have had a

couple of vacancies and it has been quite

eye-opening. Like most long in the tooth

recruiters it seems second nature, yet my

managers have had little experience and we

have had to revisit many of the principles. I

thought it may be useful to reproduce a check

list and some good practice for the process.

Those of you who are in smaller firms or do

not have ‘HR’ to rely on may find it useful.

1. You have a vacancy... but do you need to

fill it? This is a chance to consider the role

in the organisation – do you have more

pressing needs that are underutilised, or

should you restructure?

2. Once you are satisfied that you do need

to fill it, you then need to revisit the

job description (JD) and the person specification (PS). Are they up to date

and correct? You are replacing someone

who may have been doing the job for years

and you want to make sure that the person

with the right skills and knowledge comes

to the organisation. Get someone else

to look at the documents (the outgoing

member of staff or colleagues, perhaps)

– are all the key duties and skills covered?

Is the grade up to date and in step with

other posts? The worst thing you can do

is find that most of the work is covered by

‘any other duties’ and of course getting

this wrong can lead to disputes or even

grievances, which can destroy team morale

and take up a lot of time.

3. The next step is advertising. Where are

you going to advertise? Do you need to

advertise in specialist journals in the

industry, or will local recruitment from

the job centre, local websites and job clubs suffice? You need to consider your

budget and the intended audience.

Is your advert attractive, aimed at the

right audience and likely to encourage interest? There are some really good

adverts around, so do some scouting

around first and get ideas. Don’t make it

too ‘gimmicky ’, but check that it reflects

the culture of your organisation and will

attract the right type of person. Would

you want to apply for the job from the

advert? Would your colleagues?

4. Once you have your applicants, choose those

for interview or assessment. Remember

that you should remove the personal

information from the forms to avoid any

conscious or unconscious bias. Collating

information on candidates is fine (sex, age,

ethnicity, disability, etc.) but these have no

place in determining the interviewees, so a

detachable front page with the remaining

parts of the forms numbered will allow for

complete impartiality by the assessors.

5. Interview/assessment. Remember

that you are selling your organisation as

much as you are interviewing the candidate,

so prepare well and think about the room,

the format and the questions. Are you

including a tour, and how many people are

involved in the interview?

Are you including assessments or tests?

These can have their place if they are

valid, but a good well structured interview

is the core, as you want to know whether

the person is a good fit for your team –

and there is no substitute for face to face

meetings. Tests and tasks, however, can

help assess abilities and are well established

in recruitment.

6. Take your time to make your decision,

review the interviews and test scores and

who is the best fit for the office. Many

candidates will press for an answer on the

day of interview – obviously you do not

want to keep people waiting unduly long,

but a decision need not be given on the

day. When you do make the offer, have

the information with you for salary, etc.,

and know where your limits are should the

candidate wish to negotiate.

7. Finally, remember that you do not have to

appoint. If the right candidate did not come

along, maybe you just got something wrong.

Review the JD and PS, the advert and the

places you advertised. Maybe the timing

was wrong – review and go out again. It is

better to get it right than to compromise on

a candidate who may leave or have to be

dismissed during probation.

“The worst thing you can do is find that most of the work is covered by ‘any other duties’ and of course getting this wrong can lead to disputes or even grievances, which can destroy team morale and take up a lot of time.”

Viewpoint

Julie Holden’s latest column provides a handy checklist for those with responsibility for interviewing for staff

Julie Holden IRRV (Hons) MCMI CMg is

Town Clerk with East Grinstead Town Council

and a Past President of the IRRV

Annual Scottish Conference & ExhibitionService Delivery – fit for the challenge


T: 01382 456029

W: www.irrvscotland.org.uk

The Crieff Hydro Hotel, Crieff2nd and 3rd September 2015The Institute is delighted to announce details of its 2015 Scottish Conference. The Conference is – by popular demand - returning to the Crieff Hydro Hotel, where conference attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy the excellent recreational facilities set in beautiful surroundings. The theme of this year’s Conference – “Service Delivery – fit for the challenge” – comes at an important time for Scotland and will look in-depth at the key issues facing the public services, with particular emphasis on valuation, benefits and revenues issues. In addition to delivering key updates on the big issues and encouraging debate about these, conference will also examine the improved delivery of Scottish public services in a time of financial challenges and will examine how to provide quality services and continuous improvement into the future. Conference 2015 will cover key issues with first-class speakers.

For more information and booking please email [email protected]

Special Offer:

Every fourth delegate (of the same delegate rate type) from the same organisation comes entirely free of charge.

IRRV Publications


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Annotated Council Tax Legislation is a comprehensive 3 volume set, containing all the relevant parts of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 as well as appropriate sections and schedules from the Local Government Acts of 1997, 2003 and 2012, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and the Localism Act 2011.

All statutory instruments from 1992 to the publication date are included, and all amendments brought about by these regulations and orders have been made to the originating text.

Annotated Council Tax Legislation is supplied in hard copy format together with an electronic PDF version.

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IRRV Publications


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Annotated Council Tax Legislation is a comprehensive 3 volume set, containing all the relevant parts of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 as well as appropriate sections and schedules from the Local Government Acts of 1997, 2003 and 2012, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and the Localism Act 2011.

All statutory instruments from 1992 to the publication date are included, and all amendments brought about by these regulations and orders have been made to the originating text.

Annotated Council Tax Legislation is supplied in hard copy format together with an electronic PDF version.

Fees:

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IRRV Jobs Online


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Jobs Online is a web based job vacancy service offering organisations a platform from which to advertise their jobs throughout the UK to professionals in the fields of revenues, benefits and valuation. The site offers search facilities by location, salary level or area of interest for people looking for a job. Your subscription to jobs online includes the following:

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To subscribe to the service please go to www.irrv.net/jobs

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