Valio wasn't designed by software people who researched the personal search industry. It was built alongside Valerie Bennett — a veteran with over 20 years' experience who has processed millions of searches across some of the most complex periods the industry has seen.
During the HIP era — when the industry was processing unprecedented volumes — Val was running search operations at a scale most firms will never reach. Thousands of orders a month. Every council in England and Wales. Every format, every quirk, every place where a request gets rejected if you've missed something small.
She has worked with major search businesses and seen the industry through multiple cycles of change — new technology, regulatory shifts, HMLR's digitisation programme, the arrival of digital councils and the ones still insisting on paper.
“I've seen this industry go through a lot of change — HIPs, digital councils, HMLR, the lot. What's never changed is that speed and accuracy are everything.”
When Valio was being built, Val wasn't consulted at the end. She was there at the start, and throughout. Every screen in the platform was shaped by her operational experience. The council knowledge base exists because she had already mapped most of it in her own working practice. The edge cases in the order workflow are handled because she had already encountered them.
When you use Valio, you're not using a generic platform adapted for search. You're using something built the way a search professional would build it, if they also happened to know how to build software.
Rossendale Borough Council requires the admin ward in every search request. Miss it and the request is rejected. It isn't documented anywhere obvious — you learn it the first time you get a rejection. Valio handles it automatically because it was built by someone who already knew.
Some councils won't accept a direct request — they require an appointment first. Valio tracks these, sends the appointment request in the correct format, and holds the order until confirmation comes back. No manual chasing, no missed steps.
Not every council offers fast-track, and the ones that do have their own terms, costs, and contacts. Valio maps it per council — available or not, SLA in business days, dedicated contact. Your team sees it in the order without looking it up.
“Valio was built with speed and accuracy in mind from day one, because I was there making sure it was. I wouldn't put my name to something that wasn't genuinely built for this industry.”
We'll walk you through a live demo tailored to how your firm works.