Social workers in England face higher registration fees in 2014

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.