To permit processing of 2024 Council Tax bills, access to OPEN-Revenues LIVE will be withdrawn @ 17:00 on Wednesday 28 February.

All users should ensure that they have signed off by that time.

Those administering SWF and DHP may continue to access OPEN-Revenues-LIVE but must not update any aspect of the database in this time. THE SWF and DHP online forms will remain available. D360 will also remain available.

While there is no access to OPEN-Revenues LIVE, users may access a copy of OPEN-Revenues-LIVE (which was taken after CoB today [27/02]) held in OPEN-Revenues-TRAIN. Access to it is governed by users’ live credentials. Users should be aware that this database will not be updated and must not attempt to input any changes to it.

In addition, this means customers will have no access to check their accounts online during this outage period. The outage is expected to last approximately one week, but will be restored as soon as possible. Also unavailable during this time will be the processes for matching customers myaccounts for access to open portal. Please do not attempt to run the matching eform during this outage time.

We expect that all routines will be completed over the weekend and that users will receive access to OPEN-Revenues-LIVE again on Tuesday (05/03).

Due to the need to load the latest release into OPEN-Revenues LIVE it will be necessary to withdraw access to OR-LIVE at 16:00 on Tuesday, 27 February. This release must be loaded to OR-LIVE to facilitate 2024 CTX billing.

Please ensure that you have signed out of OR-LIVE by 15:55 prompt so that upgrade work may commence on schedule.

This will also impact SWF and DHP online forms.

Access to D360 will be unaffected.

We will inform you when you may access OPEN-Revenues LIVE again. We envisage that it will be available from the next day opening of business, on 28 February.

Please be advised access has now resumed to OpenRevs.

Taxation are sending out 737 letters today to those liable for the payment of Council Tax on Second Homes. This is to inform them of the recent committee decision to add a 100% Council Tax Premium to the Council Tax bills of all Second Homes. The letters are dated 26th February and a sample letter is attached.

We recently completed the routines to produce a Council Tax warrant for 2023-24 debts.

85 Attachment of Benefit letters were passed to CFH to printing and they dispatched yesterday. They are dated 21st February with a pay by date of 28th February.

424 accounts were passed to Scott & Co and they will be sending out their letters today.

We previously advised you that we were using an external company (Datatank) to send out reviews of single person discount on our behalf and this was done during October & November 2023.

They are ready to update our system now and will begin this week. There will not be any paperwork on W360 about this. There will however be a note in the Diary notes on Open Revenues to advise who has processed it and what they have done.

Please see a/c 023111020 as an example. Go to Options at the top left hand side of front screen of the account; Display Diary Note and you will find the date that the change occurred, the user and on what basis it was processed.

In this instance, the spd has been removed with effect from 1st September 2023 as per the information the customer has provided to Datatank, and a council tax bill will be produced as normal.

For any reviews which customers did not responded to, the spd will be cancelled with effect from 1st April 2023.

Please treat any customer enquiries the same as all other enquiries.

UPDATE 16:55: OPEN-Revenues has been successfully upgraded.You may sign back in.

I have now rescheduled the upgrade of OPEN-Revenues LIVE to 15:30 today.

You must have signed off by this time so that upgrade work my commence promptly.

This post will be updated when you may sign back on.

Due to the need to load the latest software releases in to OPEN-Revenues-LIVE, access to this database will be withdrawn from 15:50 on Tuesday 13 February. Please ensure that you have signed out by that time

This will also impact SWF and DHP online forms.

Access to D360 will be unaffected.

I will inform you when you may access OPEN-Revenues LIVE again. I envisage that it will be available from the next day opening of business, on 14 February.

Following the return of quarterly Benefit (including HB/CTR, FSM/clothing grants, welfare benefits, money advice, SWF, IMT) & Taxation Services (Ctax & NDR) meetings between Customer Services and service managers towards the end of 2023, stats are now being provided to these Managers on a regular basis to show the volume of work being handled for them by all areas of Customer Services.

Please click here to view the monthly stats shared to these managers for the period January 2023 to December 2023. If anyone has any questions regarding the information on this report, please feel free to contact me directly by Email.

Kindest regards

Donna / CS Team Leader

CFH have confirmed that the Council Tax final notices will be dispatching today to the mail. They are dated 8th February 2024

The breakdown of the finals is as follows:

2023 – 243

2013-2022 – 2

Parents/carers are due to receive their mid-term free school meal payment in their bank account on Tuesday 6 February 2024.

Please be advised that the payment will now be Wednesday 7 February 2024.

Just to update on Taxation's recovery plans for February:

This coming Monday 6 February 2024 – Council Tax final notices only. I’ll hopefully be able to update you with actual numbers tomorrow.

The following Monday 13 February 2024 – NDR final notices only. Again I’ll update you with approx numbers on the Friday before that (10 February).