Hundreds of staff at the Valuation Office Agency are facing an uncertain future following last week’s government decision to delay council tax revaluation.
The VOA has said it is in talks with the ODPM about winding down parts of the postponed council tax revaluation operation, which comprises a mixture of 1,400 permanent and fixed-term staff.
The VOA employees had been working on the council tax revaluation of every home in England, which was due to be put into practice in 2007. However, last week the government postponed the work until after the next general election. Local government minister David Miliband disclosed that £55m-£60m had been spent on the exercise.
A spokesperson for the VOA said: “It’s a little too early to know what will happen but we are in detailed discussions with the ODPM to see which parts of the operation need to be brought to an orderly close and which should continue in order to aid Sir Michael Lyons’ report into local government funding.
“We have a history at the VOA of never having introduced compulsory redundancies.”
The RICS has attacked the government’s climb-down and said it was “allowing existing council tax bands to become increasingly irrelevant to the property market”.
