4 Partnerships and resources

Partnership with suppliers

In 2004 the 10 year partnership contract with EDS (which the Agency shares with the rest of the Inland Revenue) for IT services will come to an end. The VOA will be party to the competition to select replacement arrangements. The Agency has also joined a similar partnership contract (this time with both the Revenue and Customs and Excise) for the supply of accommodation services by Mapeley Ltd. This contract only started in 2001/ 02 and the VOA will be working with the other departments to ensure that the arrangement supplies the agreed standards. The Agency will have regular strategic discussions with its key suppliers (including BT, who supplies telecommunications services) to ensure that the contractual arrangements benefit both parties.

Partnership in service delivery

The VOA does not deliver local taxation end to end; rates and council tax to be delivered by a partnership with local billing authorities and valuation tribunals. The VOA and the Local Government Association have set up a Steering Group to oversee the modernisation of the whole end to end process and we plan to enhance the effectiveness of this partnership during the planning period. During this period, we aim to negotiate new partnership agreements with as many billing authorities as possible to improve interchanges of information and streamline processes which cross the boundary between our organisations, using electronic links wherever possible. We will also work with the Valuation Tribunal service to improve training in both organisations, to plan appeal programmes and to plan for a modernised revaluation.

In our District Valuer Service business, we will work to enhance the effectiveness of the Strategic Estates Partnership with Defence Estates and NHS Estates and review the case for expanding the membership of this partnership or setting up similar arrangements with other providers of valuation services. We will also consider entering into partnerships with private sector surveying firms where they complement our skills and together we are able to offer a more comprehensive service to clients.

Partnerships in property data and information

The quinquennial review of the Land Registry recommended that the Land Registry and the Valuation Office should work in partnership to publish better information about property transactions, prices and rents to improve the transparency of the property market. We are working together towards publication of improved statistics from 2003. The VOA also holds regular discussions with the Land Registry, Ordnance Survey, and the Improvement and Development Agency about improvements to public sector property information. We are already members of teams progressing the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), the National Land Information Service (NLIS) and the National Land Use Property Database (NLUD). We will continue to look for opportunities to work in partnership with others to improve the transparency of the property market and the availability and use of information about property.

4.1 Information technology

Our information technology systems are critical to our ongoing operational activities, the success of our transformation plans and our interfaces with the other government bodies and the public.

As a consequence we have recently replaced our central IT system infrastructure and plan to upgrade our desktop office automation system during 2002/ 03. We are about to start a project to completely re- write our bespoke computer application software. This project which could last for up to 4 years is essential to preserve business continuity against obsolescent software as well as providing a more efficient system and enabling other IT initiatives. The speed with which we can take this project forward depends on agreeing funding priorities with our clients.

We will develop our software providing IT support to the rating revaluation in 2005 including the provision of better information to ratepayers. IT support to the council tax revaluation in Wales will be provided and we will investigate the options for Computer Aided Mass Appraisal systems (CAMA) for council tax though this is only likely to be feasible for the revaluation in England in 2007. From early in 2002/ 03 council tax lists in England and Wales will be available on the internet with an electronic appeals facility and during the planning period the existing electronic data transfer to and from billing authorities will be considerably enhanced. We will continue to drive forward IT initiatives in respect of joined up government and electronic government; in particular we will be continuing to develop our links with the HM Land Registry, National Land Information System, Highways Agency and other major clients described as above. We should meet the Government's target for all services to the public to be available electronically by 2005. We are discussing with the representative bodies from both the public and private sectors how take- up can be increased in the rating field.

The effective utilisation of IT by our staff is fundamental to maximising its benefits and to that end we will be providing all staff with on line access to a training database and developing e- learning via our Intranet.

4.2 Accommodation

We will explore with our private sector provider for our serviced accommodation opportunity to make better use of our accommodation holdings. Savings here will play an important part in meeting the Agency's efficiency targets. We will continue with our programme to refurbish and modernise our offices. There will also be a review to consider if a more efficient use can be made of the available space in offices to enable us to house the additional staff required for the Council Tax rebanding exercises to be undertaken in Wales for 2005 and in England for 2007. We will look in particular at reducing the volume of paper which we store and the space this takes up and at taking forward our pilots in teleworking to allow more people to work from home releasing office space.

4.3 Financial systems

In the past the VOA has achieved significant efficiencies. The 2000 quinquennial Review recognised the significant achievement of realising efficiency savings of 30% in the period between 1995 and 2000. However, we cannot stand still and to meet the demands of our clients over the coming years, we have set ourselves a demanding efficiency strategy (referred to in section 5). We will continue to work closely with our main client departments to ensure that the changes we introduce, and any resulting impact on the services we provide, are acceptable to them.

These initiatives will help us to deliver successfully the specific targets agreed with our clients over a period when the Spending Round 2002 placed significant constraints on all Government spending. As well as helping us to meet our pay and price increases, they will enable us to find funds to invest in new processes and arrangements we believe we will need to meet future challenges - such as a `right first time' approach to non- domestic rating and to prepare for the council tax revaluations (in Wales in 2005 and in England in 2007).

While looking to the future, we are always conscious that our key financial target each year will be to recover full resource costs, including a return on capital of 6%, from fees and charges.

To achieve this, we will continue to improve our financial processes, particularly in financial forecasting, and make them more visible throughout the Agency. This will involve better presentation of information (such as increased use of graphs to supplement tables of financial data) and strengthening the use of project management disciplines within the Agency. We will also continue, as part of our Audit Committee arrangements, to develop more formal approaches to the identification and management of key risks within the Agency.

We are in the process of negotiating new service level agreements with all our main clients to tie the provision of resource to outcomes, measured by a balanced scorecard approach, rather than the delivery of a narrowly defined range of outputs. When this is complete we will review whether there are similar changes we should make to the way resources are allocated to individual management units within the Agency.