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23rd October 2003
ATTENDEES
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M A Johns |
Chief Executive |
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D Park |
Deputy Chief Executive, Director Local Taxation |
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J H Keelty |
Director of Finance, Technology and Strategy |
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S Hartnell |
Director of Human Resources |
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J M Wilkinson |
Director of District Valuer Services |
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P Sanderson |
Director of Modernisation |
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A Grinstead |
Non Executive Director |
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D Stathers |
Non Executive Director |
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M Morrison-Paton |
Head of Communications |
Mr Makhlouf
Mr Mouland
RG Lawrence Secretary
2004/05 Budget bids and projections for future years.
Introducing
the paper, John Keelty explained that based on initial forecasts, funding
pressures were anticipated for the next financial year and beyond. Further
work by the finance team was planned to explore how the position could be eased
for 2004/05 by, for example, maximising network efficiencies from continuous
improvement and seeking comparable efficiency savings in non-Group budgets.
Looking further ahead to 2005/06
and beyond, the Board heard that the Treasury Guidance for Spending Review
(SR) 2004 suggested that it would be very difficult to obtain additional
funds. All departments would therefore have to look very carefully at their
spending priorities and efficiency programmes. The period covered by SR 2004
was a critical time for the English Council Tax Revaluation and discussions
were ongoing with ODPM to consider how any funding problems could be handled. Summing
up the discussion, the Board agreed that the FT&P team should carry
out further, more detailed, discussions with budget holders between now
and December 2003 when it was intended to announce the final budgets.
NNDR 2005 Revaluation – summary of valuations on the Internet and hard copy issue to ratepayers
Introducing
the paper, Paul Sanderson reminded the Board that as part of the modernised “right first time” approach
to the 2005 NDR revaluation, the VOA wanted to provide as many ratepayers
as possible with a summary of their valuation so that they would be able
to see how their assessment had been arrived at. The proposal was also
to place these summary valuations on the internet with unrestricted access
so that ratepayers would be able to make sure that their assessment was
in line with assessments placed on similar properties in the locality.
The Management Board had already decided,
in principle, to provide hard copy summary valuations to the majority
of ratepayers and to publish those summary valuations on the Internet,
along with the valuation schemes that underlie those valuations.
The Board were also reminded that Ministers were already signed up
to the issue of hard copy summary valuations to ratepayers following
the publication of the draft rating lists and their publication on
the website. However, in light of the Agency’s overall financial
position during the financial year 04/05, it was important to seek
final approval from the Board to proceed with the development of
the IT and other preparatory work leading up to the production of
hard copy summary valuations and their publication on the Internet.
One of the primary requirements of our clients and ratepayers was a
more transparent non - domestic rating system. The Board agreed that
this would be best achieved through the issue of summary valuations,
both in hard copy and through publication on the Internet, and therefore
gave the go ahead for the modernisation team to continue with the preparatory
work already in hand.
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