Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

Why have costs spiralled so significantly? Given the examples of the Child Support Agency and identity cards, the Government are renowned for their inability to keep within estimates. Is this just another example of optimism over experience? In fairness to the Government, I think that the reasons are more complex than that and go to the very heart of the revaluation. The revaluation is much more complex than that undertaken in 1992. The 1992 revaluation, which established the council tax, placed each house into one of eight valuation bands based on 1991 house prices, with the bands being determined by primary legislation. The banding of the individual properties commenced in January 1992, and the draft valuation lists were published in December 1992. In other words, valuers knew the banding structure when they conducted their assessments. They did not need to draw up a list of numerical valuations for each property and merely had to place each property in a band. As the Valuation Tribunal Service notes to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 state:"““It is important to remember that the legislation requires Listing Officers to place each dwelling within a Council Tax band and not to place a precise value on each dwelling””."