5 Processes

We are committed to ensuring we offer our clients best value for money for the services we provide and to on- going initiatives to seek continuous improvement as part of our values. In particular the "right first time" philosophy to local taxation requires up front investment in our initial valuations in order to save costs in reviewing these at a later date. To find the funds for this initial investment we need to streamline the handling of rating and council tax maintenance and appeals.

The local operational units of both business streams will make self assessments under the Excellence Model in order to identify the priority areas for improvement during 2002. This will encourage staff throughout the network to understand fully the context in which we are seeking continuous improvement and contribute effectively to this initiative. We see these techniques as an important tool in embedding several of our other business values (such as team working and greater involvement and trusting of people) more deeply within the VOA.

Alongside the use of the Excellence Model, we will also introduce a balanced results scorecard to help produce a broader measure of success and support the new and more outcome based key performance indicators we are, with our main clients agreement, introducing from 2002/ 03. We hope to use this broader measure of performance as part of the pay reward structure. This will complement the new performance management and grading system we introduced in 2001 which recognises, and better rewards, the skills of our staff, at all levels in the organisation.

In addition we have reviewed our main national processes during 2001 and will implement process changes arising from this review in 2002/ 03. The review looked at key business areas of rating appeals, rating maintenance and council tax maintenance. It was led by a firm of consultants who sought and secured ideas for improvement from a wide range of our own staff through a series of workshops - which clearly indicated the business acumen that exists and which needs to be harnessed across the network. A series of process maps, representing current best practice, have been drawn up and will be promulgated throughout the network over the year. Tasks which add relatively little value will be eliminated, using a more active risk assessment; greater use of teams will enable work to be handled at the appropriate level; and managers will be trained to manage processes end to end rather than looking at individual tasks. This will provide greater standardisation of efficient work processes in the intensive business area of Local Taxation.

District Valuer services will continue to seek new business with a focus on overall value rather than solely on volume. The key will be delivering valuations which are `fit for purpose' in terms of quality, timeliness and at a cost which is acceptable to clients. Process reviews will also be undertaken in this business stream to identify best practice and ensure that work is undertaken at the correct level.

At the same time we will apply a combination of activity monitoring and time recording across the two business streams.