21 June 2004

Conference Report: Valuebill Strategic Launch, 17 June 2004, London

By Staff Writer

What is Valuebill?

Local authorities in England were estimated to have lost around £825 million in revenue in 2001/2 due to under-collection of council tax and business rates. As one of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Local eGovernment National Projects, Valuebill aims to help councils deliver a step-change in revenue collection. It intends to do this by improving data exchanges between council billing departments which collect rates and the Valuation Office Agency, which compiles business rating and council tax valuation lists, integrating both parties into wider local and central land-related initiatives such as the National Land and Property Gazetteer, the National Land Information Service Hub and the Planning Portal. The project website provides updates and further information.

Presentations

· Steve Pennant, Chief Executive, LondonConnects   · Keynote: Phil Hope, Minister for Local eGovernment   · David Magor, Chief Executive, IRRV   · David Lloyd, Huntingdonshire District Council   · Denbigh Cowley, Programme Director, RYOGENS   · Terry Dailey, National Projects Supplier Management Programme and National CRM Programme   · Round table discussions

Valuebill Vision and Scope
Steve Pennant, Chief Executive, LondonConnects

Key Points

• Steve briefly introduced Valuebill, highlighting that it supports each of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's priority service areas for local eGovernment
• He then introduced the Valuebill Starter Kit (see this week's eGov monitor Weekly for further details) which is intended to make implementation smoother
• In preparation for implementation, councils could now be reviewing their existing processes and key address databases, Steve said. Initial support for the first tranche of 40 authorities to implement Valuebill is underway, and he invited councils who may be interested in taking part to get in touch.

Keynote Address
Phil Hope, Minister for Local eGovernment

Key Points

• The Minister said that in the medium to longer term, eGovernment could be key to creating the council of the future. There were significant challenges ahead on delivering real benefits through the investment being put in - these including achieving better value for money, efficiency and moving to 24/7 interaction with businesses and citizens
• Councils need to refocus their work to deliver seamless, customer-centric services, as well as rethink their back-office processes - the importance of cost-effectiveness and efficiency cannot be overlooked
• The building blocks for local eGovernment are now in place with workable projects coming on stream from the National Projects. Roll-out and take-up of the national projects, particularly in the defined priority services, will be key. The ODPM wishes to maximise the links between projects (see Terry Dailey's presentation later) and the priority services will help this.

A View from the Profession
David Magor, Chief Executive, Institute of Revenues and Rating Valuations (IRRV)

Key Points

• David enthusiastically describes Valuebill as the key to "massive opportunities for councils to manage their data more effectively". The benefits were immediate, he said, with citizens the "ultimate beneficiary".
• Corporate commitment was highlighted as essential as implementation requires skills and resources.
• The real key to Valuebill's future success is supplier commitment, David said. He argued that suppliers would be obliged to buy into Valuebill to stay competitive in the local government marketplace. In a surprising remark, David suggested that software suppliers could be played off against each other.
• He passionately underlined that UK local government has achieved the best-in-year collection performance for property tax in the world - and could further improve.

Valuebill Case Study and Benefits
David Lloyd, LLPG Manager, Huntingdonshire District Council

Key Points

• Huntingdonshire is one of 10 pilots involved in Valuebill, and has proven the value of a high standard of Local Gazetteer as a vital component for ensuring up-to-date consistently matched data between the VOA and local authorities; The Council had several out-dated data sets, but has scored a 100% match between its database systems and its Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG). To achieve this, it undertook an extensive data-cleansing exercise, coming across hurdles such as finding that a single address is sometimes recorded under several different names.
• David highlighted that implementing Valuebill is a challenge, but clean address data offers substantial benefits to authorities, such as in helping call centre staff save time locating addresses; property valuations can also be put online and presented spatially; buildings without either council tax or non-domestic rate references can be queried; processes are quicker. David estimated the additional income to the authority as £150,000 per year.

Vision
Denbigh Cowley, Programme Director, RYOGENS

Key Points

• Denbigh gave an overview of the RYOGENS National Project (See eGov monitor Weekly feature for further details) and a demonstration of the software solution.
• He saw a link between RYOGENS and Valuebill in that the LLPG could be used in pull a child's addresses into the system rather than users having to input them. Denbigh said he was looking for the first local authority who could make the link between the two National Projects.

Vision
Terry Dailey, National Projects Supplier Management Programme and Programme Director, National CRM Programme

Key Points

• Terry introduced the concept of CRM (See this eGov monitor Weekly feature) and proposed that Valuebill represented a interest progression of joining up central and local government systems, similar to mature CRM
• The National Projects are going through three stages of development - Development, Productisation (packaging the outputs for consumption for local authorities) and Dissemination (involving marketing and roll-out). Feedback from councils has been that they do not want to have to implement 23 separate projects. The new approach will be for councils to conduct gap analysis and see what they can take from the National Projects that will have the greatest impact. The ODPM is looking to consolidate the projects (such as content management, CRM and workflow) where possible. The fourth stage will be long-term sustainability, with the following authorities leading on these workstreams:

  -	West Sussex: Implementation, roll-out, best practice and liaison with the IDeA's Strategic Support and Implementation Support Units
  -	Lambeth: Marketing to the commercial sector
  -	Newham: Marketing to the local authority sector
  -	Knowsley: Regional application and rollout.

  A sustainability group will deal with market and supplier analysis and support for business cases. Terry highlighted that an organisational front to manage the projects' long-term sustainability is not yet developed - it could be a form of commercial organisation or become part of the IDeA.

• Terry concluded with a review of work currently underway in the ODPM's support and capability building programme, which involves enhancing and establishing managerial roles (see this recent eGov monitor Weekly article for details), standardised approaches to business cases, and engagement with existing professional bodies and regional support networks.

Round Table Discussions
James Thompson, Business Analyst, Huntingdonshire DC, Denbigh Cowley, Terry Dailey and Charles Partridge (Chair)

• Questioned about the links with RYOGENS, Denbigh underlined the potential relationship between LLPG data and systems requiring children's addresses. He suggested that the Department for Education and Skills should be thinking about connecting people and addresses in the children's databases which they wish to set up.
• James took up a point by Terry regarding the crucial importance of clean databases in eGovernment. He added that Valuebill has been a significant catalyst for improving the quality of property information, enabling joining up of departmental systems and improving how it delivers services overall.
• Denbigh highlighted that each of the National Projects have been built on open standards so that RYOGENS data should compliment other projects such as CRM.