ADRG02500 - Concluding ADR: formal “Record of the outcome of the ADR meeting”
At the conclusion of the mediation, with the help of both parties, the mediator will draft a summary of what has been agreed and/or what remains in dispute in consultation with the parties. This is called “the Record of the outcome of the ADR meeting” and a template is available [See ADRG03300].
The mediator will invite the participants to contribute, comment on this record, and to confirm their agreement to its contents by email. Where the meeting takes place in a face to face setting, the participants will confirm their agreement by signature.
This document will list each appealed decision that has been brought into mediation and will then record, for each of those decisions, whether an agreement has been reached or not; and if agreement has been reached, on what terms.
Settlement of appeals will be stated in statutory terms to ensure that agreements are conclusive and that customers understand their statutory rights to withdraw from agreements.
The statutory language is straightforward: all that is required is that the agreed amount to be assessed is clearly set out and there is a statement that the appeal is agreed as determined (for example) under S54 TMA 70 or under section 85, VATA.
The mediator should include in the Record of Outcome anything that a party does not agree with.
The Record of Outcome may record partial agreements and record matters where no agreement has been reached. The Record of Outcome may also simply say that the ADR process was concluded without any agreement being reached on the matters in dispute.
The mediator will ask for confirmation from both parties that the final document is a true record of the outcome of the process.
The Record of Outcome will usually be finalised at the end of the day of mediation, but if some extra days are needed for completion of this record because one or both of the parties needs to gather more information, then this can usually be allowed. For example, the HMRC party may need to check or calculate figures or seek governance approval for a settlement. The mediator will aim to complete the final record in all cases within a week of the mediation day.
In some special category of cases, the final conclusion on whether HMRC can accept a solution proposed during mediation is subject to internal HMRC Governance and can only be made by a “Dispute Resolution Board” or similar panel [see ADRG03100].