NHS BURY
CLIENT BRIEFUnder pressure NHS Bury called us in over Christmas 2010 to conduct an audit of principal property costs like rates, rents, dilapidations and service costs, on the basis of…
CLIENT BRIEFUnder pressure NHS Bury called us in over Christmas 2010 to conduct an audit of principal property costs like rates, rents, dilapidations and service costs, on the basis of cutting as much operating cash outflow as quickly as possible and help save the souls of the Bury and Rochdale communities. We started with the business rates liabilities across their portfolio, for both the 2005 and 2010 Lists, giving us a twelve year remit to make property cost savings for them.
OUR PROFESSIONAL APPROACHHaving got all the data and visited all the premises, we then had to investigate each property back to April 2005 to consider what we could do to cut or shift the business rates liabilities and thus cut the cash outflows and stemming the loss of lifeblood - only to be met by a wall of resistance by the taxing authorities! So, we did our work patiently and tactically over the years as dutiful advisers and negotiators ; and then we waited as the queue of other appeals ground down to allow us a go, only to have the work repeatedly stalled by the taxman not being ready to talk (sensibly). It was only in Summer 2012 and again more recently that we could (and did) make major in-roads for the client.
Meanwhile we had to inspect, measure, find evidence, go through schedules of cost calculations etc. in order to get under the skin of the taxman and the council which we finally did. Luckily the patient body was not as wrecked as a Bury football fan on a Sunday morning and we got through the winters of 2010-12 with a few successes being pulled in.
Just recently we have got the big ‘wins’ finalized at last and just at the crucial time too, wrapping up major and final successes from what looked like a fairly ‘dry’ list of small assessments at the outset.
THE SUCCESS STORYPatience not patients is our stock-in-trade at Ask-re. Attention to detail, patience, determination and specialist skills have proven highly effective for our NHS client.
*Why ask-re?*The business rating theory of assessment completely changed for specialist NHS premises; the valuation of doctors surgeries greatly reduced; admin offices and storage space to be revalued downward in values applied; the Valuation Office connected with reality; the local authority being checked on its refund calculations and corrected; the PCT staff relieved of a great deal of pressure on budgets and helped with in-sourced specialist skills and negotiation backup to enable everyone to calm down and concentrate on front-line and back-end; staff singing not squealing and the sun coming out and cheering the place up.
Whilst our work is not yet complete, our two main phases of ‘results’ have led to savings in the NHS Bury portfolio of nearly £2m in the period of our work.