Update 11:30: I have been advised by ICT the issue has now been resolved and the payments will be on tomorrows payment files.

Please be advised that we haven’t received any income files this morning.An update will be provided once a resolution has been received.

Please note Council Tax Recovery has been cancelled for April 2024 due to income system problems.

Following some Emails I picked up last week I noticed there was a difference in how these were being handled with some Advisors answering the questions and some passing back to the service. As a result I asked Taxation Manager James Taylor the following question and I’ve also provided James’ answer which should ensure that we’re all doing the same:

If we receive an Email from a team member at the Assessor’s office (Grampian Joint Valuation Board) asking to confirm of a possible alternative correspondence address, is this something that you’re happy for Customer Services to deal with or should this be passed back to Ctax/NDR teams?

Please see the following reply from James:

I’m very happy for Customer Service Advisors to answer questions like this from the Assessor’s office. However, if there are any questions that cannot be answered they should raise the appropriate Support Form on D360.

As always if there are any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact the senior mailbox in the first instance.

Kindest regards
Donna / Customer Service Team Leader

04/04/2024 - Revenues have advised that all ayear end jobs have been completed and access is restored for everything including NDR

02/04/24 - OPEN Revenues YearEnd jobs have not all been completed.

Access to OPENRevenues is now restored to all users.

With the exception of Non-Domestic Rates, system input may recommence.

NDR input will not recommence until some additional reporting jobs have been completed

01/04/24 - To facilitate the extraction of financial year-end reports and the ‘rolling’ OPENRevenues into 2024 mode, there will be no access to OPENRevenues LIVE on Monday 1 April.

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.

I expect that the ‘roll-forward’ routines will take some time to complete and validate so users should not attempt to access OPENRevenues-LIVE until I have informed them that access has been restored.

The 5th of the month direct debits (monthly & weekly) tape was run in advance at the end of last week because of the bank holiday.

We had not amended the weekly spars and these cases will have collected the spar instalment and the current year instalments. Although not ideal, this is not incorrect. The customer was already paying a SPAR amount and they did receive a council tax bill advising of the instalments for the new financial year.

However, the customer does have the right to make an indemnity claim through their bank. Can I ask that you put a Support Enquiry onto W360 for any customer that you speak to regarding a double lift of instalments letting us know what course of action they are going to take or want us to take.

We will work through these cases early next week.

Regards

Gillian

Revenue have advised the Non Domestic Rates annual bills (just under 5000) were released to the mail yesterday.