Summary of Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Management Board Meeting

Meeting – 18th December 2003

ATTENDEES

O’Donnell Review.

Michael Johns provided the Management Board with a verbal update. Nothing had been said in the Chancellor’s pre-budget report apart from the fact that the review was nearing completion. An announcement would possibly be made in January. The report was likely to focus on the shift of work between the Revenue, Customs and the Treasury and would have little impact on the VOA.

Budget Allocation 2004/05

The purpose of the paper was to provide the Management Board with the outcome of discussions with Groups, Specialist Units and CEO Divisions, which had effectively resulted in the closure of the 2004/05 funding gap.

John Keelty thanked everyone for providing him with the relevant figures that had enabled him to bridge the existing funding gap and reduce it to £954,000; which he was confident should resolve itself during the course of the coming year. Michael Johns endorsed this appreciation of people’s efforts to solve the problem.

It was stressed that work in a number of areas would come in peaks and troughs over the next year and Groups had been informed of the need to hold resource in reserve so that it could be deployed when demand peaked.

The Board agreed that budgets should be allocated on the basis set out in the report.

Lyons Review

The purpose of this paper, presented by Jo Coll, was to outline various options available to the VOA for relocating work from London and the South East to address the VOA’s operational needs and to anticipate the outcome of the Lyons review.

Steve Hartnell introduced the paper by saying that HR had prepared some specific proposals and also considered some longer-term strategic options. Although the response from the review team headed by Sir Michael Lyons was not known, it was likely that there would be a focus on the larger bodies centred on London rather than network organisations such as the VOA. The paper provided an opportunity to make decisions on the specific proposals and to discuss the available longer-term options.

The Board agreed that work should be pressed ahead on the short term options of relocation of central processing of DVS work, the setting up of a liaison unit with the Revenue at Nottingham and twinning of groups in surplus with those in deficit.

The Board agreed that it was also desirable to take a strategic view of the longer term organisation for the VOA before deciding on where parts of the organisation should be located. This needed to consider the implications of more automated data collection and processes.

It was agreed that these issues raised important questions about the structure of the organisation and needed to be the subject of a more wide-ranging debate at a Management Board workshop.

Proposed Growth of LS Business

The purpose of this paper was to update the Management Board on the work done since the presentation to the Board on the 4 December 2002 and to seek approval to establish a client development team to concentrate primarily on new and lost clients.

The objective for DVS for 2003/4 had been to eliminate the backlog of Revenue work and if this was achieved to aim for a 20% growth in the LS business per annum from 2004/5.

The backlog of Revenue cases had been reduced from 10,331 cases in April 2003 to 1,260 cases in December. This remaining backlog was expected to be cleared by 31 March 2004 to conform to the IR SLA.

In order to aim for a growth target of 20% per annum the Board agreed to the creation of a self-funding Client Development Team that will be able to commit to client development in a full time capacity.

Lone Workers Risk Assessment

The purpose of this paper, introduced by Michael Thompson, was to provide a summary of the main conclusions of the risk assessment, delivered by BMI in July 2003, and the recommendations to address the identified issues.

The Board took the view that Health and safety was an important issue. It was necessary to improve the way in which we addressed potential Health and Safety matters. Procedures were already in place to tighten up on the reporting of incidents and this had resulted in a more incidents being reported, although very few were classed as serious.

As a result of the discussions the Board agreed that additional safety equipment should be issued to staff and endorsed the principle of wider allocation of mobile phones to lone workers for health and safety and operational use. The costs and method of implementing this latter proposal were to be the subject of more detailed discussions.

Choosing Charter Mark Assessors

Pat Duckworth introduced this paper, the purpose of which was to request Management Board approval of the use of a single Charter Mark assessment company. The Board were informed that we were moving ahead to secure and re-secure Charter Marks and that 16 Groups were aiming to achieve Charter Mark status next year.

By using a single Charter Mark company we would be able to create a corporate box of evidence, which would earn points towards Charter Mark status and help reduce the amount of work required by individual Groups.

The Board endorsed this approach and Groups should make their applications through EMQC.

New Ways of Working and Work/Life Balance

The purpose of the paper was to report on the current progress of the project ,to report on the evaluation of the pilots that had been taking place in parts of the network and CEO, to seek approval to extend the life of the pilots and to consider adopting the new ways of working principles throughout the VOA.

Steve Hartnell introduced the paper by informing the Board that no significant operational issues had arisen in the pilots. There had been no adverse affect on productivity but no significant operational benefits either. There was however greater flexibility in being able to offer a service over extended hours . This was good for customer service but there was some increased management time initially in operating the new systems. The Board underlined their support for line managers having the ultimate decision when balancing requests for new working patterns with operational needs.

The adoption of New Ways of Working had been good for morale although this was difficult to quantify. It had enabled the VOA to retain some staff that we would otherwise have lost.

The Board agreed to the extension of the pilots and that New Ways of Working could be implemented across the network provided that the final consultation processes did not raise any unforeseen issues..
The existing provisions for taking time off would need to be reviewed to reflect the greater flexibility available to staff in arranging their private lives.