GDC decides on ARF of £890
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- Published: Thursday, 30 October 2014 15:51
- Written by News Editor
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Meeting on October 30, the General Dental Council (GDC) decided to impose an Annual Retention Fee (ARF) for 2015 of £890 for dentists and £116 for dental care professionals. An email notifying registrants was sent the same afternoon.
Mick Armstrong, Chair of the British Dental Association’s Principal Executive Committee, said:
"The GDC steered well clear of the only tough choice in front of it: to acknowledge mistakes had been made, and to go to back the drawing board in 2015. We are not surprised by that decision, and it means the regulator will finally have to defend its shabby consultation in court."
The GDC was given three choices of ARF by its Executive for dentists £945, £890 or £850 and for DCPs £128, £116 or £111, the latter payable next July. It also discussed its response to the recent consultation and the KPMG (auditor) report, which it had commissioned.
Before the meeting the GDC Chief Executive and Registrar, Evlynne Gilvarry said that the Council’s decision was about ensuring they had the resources in place ‘to be sustainable and responsive as a regulator of the dental profession in the future’. She also said that there had been no increase in the ARF for four years, but since 2011 there had been a 110% rise in complaints.
Further quotes from Mick Armstrong:
"This afternoon the GDC’s Council sat down to pick from three shades of fee hike. Over the last four months the regulator has spectacularly failed to make a case for any of the options on the table. Each of these models emerged after a car crash consultation, and we see little point in debating their relative merits. "
"Today our call for fast tracked legal proceedings has been accepted. There was never any case for delaying the court case, as the GDC has tried to do. This mess is entirely of the GDC’s own making, and we will ensure its decision is tested by a judge before dentists are legally obliged to pay their fees on New Year’s Eve.”
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