Corporate report

VOA Equality Objectives (2020-2024)

Published 3 March 2021

1. About the VOA

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is an executive agency of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). We employ approximately 3,400 people.

We are the public sector’s property valuation experts and advisers, providing the valuations needed to support local taxation and benefits; our work underpins the funding of vital public services.

The work we do enables the collection of approximately £58 billion of revenue in non-domestic rates (also known as business rates) and council tax in England and Wales, which helps to fund essential public services. We also help determine fair rents and housing allowance received, as well as undertaking property valuation work for a range of public sector clients.

2. Context – relevant legislation

As a public body, under the Public Sector Equality Duty in the Equality Act 2010, the VOA has a specific duty to publish one or more equality objectives to support the agency in meeting the aims of the general equality duty. This requires the VOA to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and any other conduct prohibited under the Act
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who don’t share it
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who don’t share it

The protected characteristics protected under the Act are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief – this includes lack of belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

3. Our approach

The VOA is committed to promoting the equality of opportunity for all. Having due regard to equality considerations in our work is an integral part of working with our customers, and supporting our workforce.

Our equality objectives reflect the Agency’s priorities on diversity and inclusion but by no means cover the entirety of our ambition. We aim to provide our customers with a truly accessible service whilst also making the VOA a great place to work for our people. We want to do more than what we are legally required to do; we want to be positive advocates for promoting equality for all.

As an employer, we will continue to promote equality of opportunity to ensure our workforce represents the communities we serve, and that we attract and retain talented staff. This goes further than the protected characteristics as we also focus on improving social mobility in the VOA. We report on the Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing progress we have made in our Annual Report and Accounts. Within this we also publish information on the diversity of our workforce.

As a public body, we will continue to ensure all customers are treated fairly, and are committed to ensuring our services are as accessible as possible for all customers.

4. Our Equality Objectives

Workforce Equality Objectives:

• Diversity Data: We will improve our breadth and depth of workforce diversity data to enable us to better understand our people, so that we can build a more inclusive workplace
• Inclusive and Diverse Workforce: We’ll nurture and sustain a workforce which reflects the communities we serve and creates a work environment which fosters good relations, values difference and advances equality of opportunity for all. We will champion a culture of inclusion, proactively engaging with all people and supporting those who experience barriers to be able to participate fully in the workplace.

To support delivery of these workforce equality objectives, we will encourage our people to declare their diversity data, communicating the importance of this to our people which includes tracking the progress made and to the decisions we make as an organisation. We will provide Diversity and Inclusion training to colleagues, opportunities to develop through coaching and mentoring and regularly review our policies and processes to help advance equality of opportunity for all.

Customer Equality Objectives:

• Customer Understanding: We will improve our equality-related data, allowing us to better understand our customers’ needs and how we can best support them when they require reasonable adjustments or additional support
• Customer Service: Customers will interact with staff who are well-trained, knowledgeable and confident in meeting our customers’ needs, including those who require reasonable adjustments or additional support. We want to ensure we can best serve all our customers equally, with no exception
• Digital Services: We will ensure our digital services are accessible and useable by the widest possible range of customers, whilst providing alternatives and support for those who are digitally-excluded.

We will be delivering a wide-range of work in support of these customer equality objectives. This includes improving our customer equality training package and reviewing all our equalities policies, processes and guidance to ensure they best support our customers.

We will also ensure the VOA is accessible to all, through compliance with the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, by designing our systems with equality considerations at their heart, and by ensuring we have contact routes appropriate for all customers, including those who are digitally excluded and those who require additional support.

Further, we will evolve our systems to better capture customer equality data, meaning we can make more informed decisions on how to best support our customers going forward.