Vol. 395 No. 5
19 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Finance if he is satisfied that the Valuation Office is capable of carrying on its current extensive workload with its existing resources; if he has any plans or proposals to expand the staff and operation of the Valuation Office in order to enable it to undertake the task for which it is statutorily charged; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Steps have been taken already to streamline and modernise the operation of the Valuation Office. Under the 1988 Valuation Act a number of changes were made to facilitate this.
Applications for revision of valuation can now be submitted at any time during the year instead of just at one limited period and results are issued regularly.
The appeal process has also been streamlined through the establishment of the Valuation Tribunal and this has been welcomed by all concerned.
Resources are also being made available for a computerisation programme to ensure that, within a relatively short period, all rating and valuation records will be available in computer form and that Valuation Office records can be dovetailed with the computerised rating lists of local authorities.
I will, of course, keep the staffing and operational needs of the Valuation Office under review in the light of progress made in implementing the changes referred to above and of Government policy on public service staffing.
Would the Minister not agree that the number of reviews carried out on urban properties by the Valuation Office is totally inadequate, that in many cases properties have not been reviewed for ten, 20 or even 30 years and thus the valuations are totally out-of-date leaving gross disparities between one estate and another and that this arises from serious inadequacies in staffing of the Valuation Office?
I have a table which sets out the staffing levels at each of the grades at various intervals over the past 12 years. The clerical assistant grade has suffered most and the clerical officer grade has also suffered, but apart from that there has been minute movement in staff numbers. There is an on-going programme of computerisation in the office and one would expect that computerisation would reduce the workload. I recognise the workload has increased but I expect the computerisation would make the whole area more efficient.
The civil servant I had in mind was the field officer who goes and carries out the inspection on the ground. While computerisation would be welcome in that it would simplify the records back at the office, would the Minister not agree that what is needed is more people in the field to bring the reviews up to date? Would the Minister not agree also that it is a source of concern and possibly could affect the legality and constitutionality of the whole system when valuations are not reviewed for 20 to 30 years?
I have the staffing chart in front of me but the field officer, as the Deputy has described him is not referred to under that heading and I am not in a position to give the Deputy an informed comment on the staffing at that level.
However, the introduction of continuous revision in 1989 has resulted in four quarterly issues of results of revisions of valuations in place of the single annual revision which operated since the mid 19th century, as the Deputy is aware. The move back to net annual value requiring detailed rental valuation to compute the rateable value combined with the emergence of complexes such as the St. Stephen's Green shopping centre and the Custom House Docks site have all added to the workload without an increase in the available staff to carry it out. We are keeping the matter under review and we hope, which is in the interest of everybody in the House, to make it as efficient as possible with the aid of computerisation and bearing in mind the appropriate staffing level.
