To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of council tax challenges submitted to the Valuation Office Agency have been (a) checked and (b) reviewed within the service level agreement in each of the past 12 months for which there is data.

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) has an internal target to clear 98 per cent of Council Tax proposals and informal Council Tax band reviews within two months. The statutory deadline to clear proposals is four months, and currently 98 per cent of cases are cleared within this deadline.

Following the former Chancellor’s announcement around the Council Tax rebate in February, the volume of Council Tax work has substantially increased. In particular, the VOA has seen an increase in demand for band reviews of over 75 per cent compared to the same period in 2021.

The VOA is working hard to reduce volumes as quickly as possible and has assigned additional staff resource to this activity. The VOA is prioritising reducing the number of outstanding older cases first. The impact of this is that, on average, it is currently taking the VOA around two and a half months to clear proposals, and just under three months to clear band reviews.

The tables below show the number and percentage of proposals and band reviews resolved within two months of receipt, and proposals resolved within the statutory deadline.

Council Tax Proposals

Informal Council Tax Band Reviews