The Valuation Office Agency will be "scrapped" and its functions brought into HM Revenue and Customs, the government has announced.
Civil service unions have hit out at the announcement, but said the government has provided assurances that there won’t be redundancies.
The Treasury announced yesterday that the arm’s-length body, which is responsible for valuing properties for council tax and business rates, will be “scrapped”, with "the majority" of its functions brought into its parent department HMRC by April 2026.
The Prospect union, which represents specialist, digital, technical and scientific civil servants, said the decision was a “slap in the fact to hard-working civil servants”,
“VOA is not a failing organisation, it is hard to see how this move will improve its operation,” Prospect’s general secretary, Mike Clancy, said.
“Indeed, the agency is in the middle of a high-profile revaluation exercise, which could be adversely affected by unnecessary structural changes,” he added.
Clancy said the decision to bring VOA into HMRC was made “with no warning and no consultation with unions at a local or national level”.
PCS, the civil service’s biggest union, also criticised the way the move was announced.
Fran Heathcote, PCS's general secretary, said: “Any suggestion that our members, or the important work they do, are being "scrapped" is unacceptable. Our members collected £60bn for the Treasury last year and the lack of consultation and the language used in the announcement shows a lack of respect for the work that they do.
“Our hard-working members at VOA deserve better than having this news dropped on them without any consultation and we will be seeking assurances that this approach does not set a precedent for how future changes are carried out.”
PCS said it shares the government’s "desire to create a more coherent civil service under direct, democratic state control” but that any changes “must be subject to proper consultation in advance of decisions being made”.
“On a government-wide level, we are calling on ministers to work with us to change the civil service for the better," she said. "Proper consultation with the unions must take priority over headline-grabbing announcements, and our members, and the work they carry out, must be given the respect they deserve.”
The announcement follows the decision last month to bring NHS England into the Department of Health and Social Care. The government also announced a review of arm's-length bodies this month.
Clancy said he believes the VOA would not have met the criteria for being brought back into government under the terms of the ALB review.
“The government should ask itself what logic is being applied to the review of ALBs if it is going to ignore its own criteria for whether or not an agency is scrapped or brought in house,” he added.
Announcing the move yesterday, James Murray, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury and chair of the HMRC board, said: “We are determined to reduce the hassle of the tax system for British businesses and taxpayers. Ending the inefficiency and duplication of a standalone VOA will help us drive change faster and improve value for money.
“This government is determined to make public services more productive, helping to deliver our Plan for Change and put more money in peoples’ pockets.”
The Treasury said the move is expected to deliver between 5% and 10% in savings on VOA administrative costs by 2028-29.