Social workers in England face higher registration fees in 2014

The Health and Care Professions Council said it needs to increase the amount professionals pay to register every year to cover the rising costs of regulation.

The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) has today launched a three-month consultation on proposals to increase its registration fees in 2014.

The regulator is proposing to increase the renewal fee from £76 to £80 per year.

It said this was “significantly lower” than the rate of inflation over the four years since the last fee increase in 2009.

The HCPC is self-financing, so its operating costs are entirely funded by registrant fees.

Marc Seale, chief executive of the HCPC, said: “We do our utmost to ensure we operate our processes as efficiently as possible.

“However, it is important that we set our fees at a realistic level in order to continue to provide an efficient service to our registrants and deliver our primary function of protecting the public.”

The consultation, which will run until 1 October, sets out where fees are spent and why the increases are needed.

If the proposals are adopted the changes to the fees would be effective from 1 April 2014.

Registrants already on the register would pay the new renewal fee when their profession next renews its registration – for social workers, that would be later in 2014.

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