Reviewing Southwark’s draft 13/14 accounts (page 138) they show a financial provision estimating that Southwark businesses with appeals against the Business Rates (NNDR) are expected to win £39M !

30% of this will come from Southwark Council and 70% from the Great London Authority and the Government. This is a result of the pickle of the Business Rates review in 2005.

The backlog created by appeal in 2005 is taking a very long time to resolve. Amazingly businesses typically have been waiting 8-9 years for their appeal with the Valuation Office Agency to be decided. It really is not clear when this huge backlog damaging Southwark businesses will be cleared.

Think how many extra jobs could be created if those businesses had that money sooner rather than later.

So at Southwark Councils Audit & Governance committee on Monday evening I asked, and the committee agreed, that we invite the VOA to attend our next meeting in September to explain how they will fix this and what Southwark Council can do to help resolve this.