Disclosure of information held by valuation officers to ratepayers
During the course of the Business Rates Review, respondents indicated a preference for greater transparency with respect to the rental evidence used to calculate individual rateable values22. Greater transparency was considered important by some respondents who wanted to understand how their valuations had been arrived at, and to have greater access to the rental information used to calculate their valuation23.
	Therefore, in the Final Report of the Business Rates Review, the government announced plans for increasing transparency in two phases:
Phase 1. Improved guidance covering rating principles and class-specific valuation approaches.
Phase 2. Making available analysis of rental evidence used to set a rateable value for a specific property, such as analysed price per area, and an explanation of how the evidence has been used to arrive at the rateable value.
	Phase 1 could be delivered under existing powers and was, therefore, implemented ahead of the 2023 rating list. Phase 2 could not be delivered under existing legislation because, without an explicit statutory authority, release of such information might have constituted wrongful disclosure of information under the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005. Therefore, the Act permits Valuation Officers to disclose to the ratepayer information that relates to the hereditament and which the valuation officer had regard to in ascertaining its rateable value. This will enable the VOA, once it has concluded the consultation process initiated by the publication of a consultation document at the 2023 Spring Statement24, to implement Phase 2 Transparency. These changes will apply to both England and Wales.