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Examines the origins, objectives and achievements of the European Group of Valuers of Fixed Assets. Discusses the principles and contents of the European Guidance Notes on the Valuation of Fixed Assets. Concludes that there is now a consensus among valuation professionals involved internationally that they must work to a commonality of valuation certificate.

This paper considers the development of national and international standards for valuers. Examines in outline the variations in market practice arising from variations in law, culture and custom while noting the general acceptance internationally of the underlying meaning of “market value”.

Publishes some of the findings of a research project that examined whether valuers and valuations have a role in the provision of more strategic property advice to business occupiers. The research consisted of a postal questionnaire survey of over 250 businesses that examined the role of property and the use of valuations in strategic business decisions. The survey was supported by the findings from 18 structured interviews and an analysis of over 70 sets of company accounts. The results revealed that, despite valuers becoming increasingly involved in measuring corporate efficiency and valuations being used for this purpose, business occupiers do not recognise valuers in a strategic role. Instead, many firms see valuers as providing a single valuation service, the estimation of market value for purchase/sale decisions and corporate disclosure. The research suggests that valuations do have a role to play in the provision of more strategic business advice but the valuer will need to understand the client’s wider business needs and how property plays a part in the client’s business. Valuers need to convince clients that they are not overly technical in their outlook, have broad business skills that include strategic thinking and an awareness of business issues.

The Library Campaign is still a force to be reckoned with. That was the message that came out of The Campaign's crisis meeting held in Birmingham on 23 September when over 50 supporters assembled to offer much needed help and expertise.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the efficiency and the productive slacks of a sample of major UK auditing firms between 2005 and 2012.

Using the bootstrapping technique as the cornerstone method, DEA estimates were computed, allowing the test for differences in the levels of efficiency and in the potentials for decreasing inputs and increasing outputs. Then, neural networks were combined with DEA estimates to model, with effective predictive ability, the drivers of auditing firms’ performance.

The findings indicate an ambiguous impact of regulatory policies on efficiency levels. Results also indicate an eventual capacity shortfall, since the most important productive resource does not seem to cope with demand growth in the future.

This paper aims to focus on efficiency, complementing previous research in the UK that focuses on productivity, and helps in establishing a decision-support system to slack evaluation.