Whitehall officials rushed out the provisional local government finance settlement days before Christmas despite knowing the figures it was based on were wrong, The MJ has learnt.
Last week, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) admitted it would have to rip up the provisional settlement after the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) updated tables on its website, blaming a ‘fault in the process used to extract data’.
But The MJ can reveal the VOA informed the then Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) prior to the publication of the provisional settlement.
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