No instrument for updating the local tax base: council tax still sits on 1991 valuations

Council tax remains based on 1991 property values (no English revaluation in 35 years), and in its September 2025 response to the HCLG Committee the government confirmed it has no plans to reform council tax; the fiscal devolution roadmap focuses on sharing national taxes instead. There is no statutory revaluation cycle and no maintained VOA domestic revaluation dataset, so the base corrodes further every year. IFS and the HCLG Committee have repeatedly recommended revaluation and band reform, and Wales has legislated (Local Government Finance (Wales) Act 2024) for regular revaluations, showing the instrument is buildable within the UK.

The principal local tax is increasingly regressive and arbitrary: identical bills for wildly divergent property values distort both household fairness and the Fair Funding equalisation built on measured tax capacity. Every fiscal devolution step compounds errors baked into a 1991 snapshot.

A statutory rolling revaluation cycle with VOA automated-valuation infrastructure and transitional relief, ideally de-politicised through an independent cross-party commission, mirroring the Welsh legislative model. Sponsors: HM Treasury and VOA; groundwork by IFS and think tanks funded by abrdn Financial Fairness Trust.

// State-led: Instrument: primary legislation for a rolling revaluation cycle on the Welsh 2024 Act model, with VOA automated-valuation infrastructure.

The principal local tax is grossly regressive on 35-year-old valuations, but government explicitly ruled out reform in 2025 and the political build is long and contested.