Hounslow Council chooses Liberata to provide a fully managed Business Rates Review Service which has already generated over £4,000,000
Overview
The London Borough of Hounslow, situated in West London, covers an area of about 22 square miles that
includes Feltham, Isleworth, Brentwood, Gunnersbury and parts of Chicwick. It was formed in 1965 from an amalgamation of districts that were then included in Middlesex. The council provides a range of services to approximately 275,000 residents.
Hounslow Council has been in a long term partnership with Liberata. So, when they realised that they needed to undertake a full review of businesses in the area to ensure that all were correctly rated for Business Rates, Liberata was the obvious choice.
The Requirement
However efficient that Council had been in collecting National Non Domestic Rates (NNDR), there are always businesses that are under-rated as they have grown and subsequently not been revalued and even some organisations that had “slipped through the net” completely and not been rated at all.
The Council wanted to update their records and ensure that all businesses across the Borough were paying the right amount of NNDR. But undertaking a full review can be very resource intensive and not always seen as a high priority.
The Solution:
Liberata has been providing a Business Rates Review Service, through Capacitygrid, to local authorities for many years. This is a fully-managed review, including canvassing, outbound calling, full customer service support and Valuation Office Agency administration and was offered to Hounslow on a “risk and reward” basis – meaning that there would be no fee if Liberata was not successful.
Importantly, the service from Liberata included site investigations that are essential in collating sufficient evidence to ensure acceptance by the VOA.
In addition, Liberata is able to identify issues with more unusual categories of business that are liable to pay NNDR: advertising banners, mobile communication masts, Amazon drop-boxes and solar farms.
This service commenced with Hounslow in 2019 and has proved to be hugely successful.
The Benefits
- £4,288,250 of additional rateable value (RV) has been achieved
- 227 new “prospects” have been identified and accepted by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA)
- 104 of these were “new prospects” and previously not rated at all
- 35 cases are with the VOA for processing – this equates to a further £349,000 of potential RV
