Valuation Office Agency likely to miss Chancellor’s target to clear business rates appeal backlog

According to The Independent, the Valuation Office Agency is going to miss George Osborne’s target for clearing the backlog of business rates appeals
In the article the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) claims that there are 21,000 cases listed with a hearing date but this is meaningless. Tribunals regularly list over 300 cases for a single day at a single venue, knowing there will be time to only hear around half a dozen. The solution must be for the VOA to discuss appeals sensibly within the allocated discussion period. In fact, the reverse is happening. In the last few days we have settled appeals which had been allocated an actual hearing slot less than 48 hours before those hearings took place, following first contact from the VOA after they became aware of the slot.