Corporate report

VOA Equality Objectives (2025-2028)

Published 13 January 2025

1. About the VOA

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is an executive agency of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). We employ approximately 4,000 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 £60 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 doing 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

Our objectives are in three categories: 

1. Representative
2. Inclusive
3. Respectful

for both customer and workforce equality.

1. Representative

Customer - We will improve our understanding of customers who have protected characteristics, to ensure we identify the impact of policy and service changes on our customers.

To be successful we will:

• Review our data, continuing to evaluate our approach to protected characteristics data collection and explore existing/ new data sources. This will help gain insight about customer equality considerations and potential impacts of our decisions.

• Increase and monitor completion of Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs) for all relevant policy decisions, projects or changes that impact our customers with protected characteristics, with the aim of further evidencing compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).

• Strengthen our internal governance and accountability for projects and policy change activity to undergo Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs).

Workforce - We will build and maintain a diverse and inclusive workforce, reflective of all the communities we serve across all grades, groups, and regions.

To be successful we will:

• Increase the proportion of colleagues who voluntarily declare their diversity characteristics in our online HR system to 85%, to enable more accurate equality analysis of employee experience and outcomes.

• Increase diversity at our most senior levels, measured via representation rates of women, disabled and ethnic minority colleagues at Grade 7, Grade 6 and Senior Civil Service (SCS) roles.
• Ensure our recruitment processes are merit-based, measured by equality analysis of the outcomes of selection decisions.

2. Inclusive

Customer - We will support work to ensure that no customers are disadvantaged when accessing our services.

To be successful we will:

• Improve our centralised understanding of our reasonable adjustment provision, including support for those who are digitally excluded.

• Review, identify barriers, and make recommendations to increase the accessibility of VOA services.

Workforce - We will ensure our physical and digital environments are inclusive and accessible, enabling colleagues to do their best work.

To be successful we will:

• Improve colleague satisfaction rates with how easily and quickly agreed workplace adjustments are provided.

• Close any significant gaps in the employee experience of colleagues from different equality groups, measured by the ‘Inclusion and Fair Treatment’ themed questions in the Civil Service People Survey.

• Close any significant gaps in the retention rates of colleagues from different equality groups, measured by equality analysis of leaver data.

3. Respectful

Customer - to provide colleagues across the organisation with the tools and training necessary to support their understanding of VOA’s responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 and PSED.

To be successful we will:

• Continue to offer training to customer-facing directorates to build awareness of PSED, our equality obligations and reasonable adjustments. We will monitor success through training uptake, colleague feedback and ongoing complaints monitoring.

• Provide resources for colleagues such as workshops and toolkits, monitored and reviewed by colleague feedback.

Workforce - We will provide a fair, kind and human culture with a strong sense of belonging, and community environments where we grow, thrive and learn.

To be successful we will:

• Reduce the level of bullying, harassment, and discrimination (BHD) if this may be experienced by a small number of colleagues.  Increase the level of BHD reporting when it does happen and agreement that appropriate actions were taken to address it, measured by the Civil Service People Survey.

• Improve colleague experience scores in the Civil Service People Survey of the genuine care of team colleagues for their wellbeing.