Closed consultations

On this page we list our past consultations, which have now closed.

Results of the fee reduction consultation

Background

The Government has ordered all healthcare regulators to review their processes and to cut costs. The GOsC is reviewing its costs in order to reduce the financial burden on registrants and in January Council agreed that savings identified in the current review should be passed on to registrants in the form of a fee reduction in 2012-2013.

Earlier this year we held a consultation about how this reduction should be achieved. We asked you two questions:

1: do you agree that identified savings should be passed back to the profession via a fee reduction?

2: should the reduction in fees be focused on the highest fee of £750 (option 1) or applied as an across the board fee reduction (option 2)?

Responses

The consultation ran from 9 February 2012 until midnight on Sunday 26 February 2012 and responses were received via email, post, the public website and the o zone. In total we received 785 responses. A number of respondents also supplied written comments. We have collected these into one document and answered each one. You can download the Comments and written responses to the fee consultation here.

Results

A total of 768 respondents answered the consultation questions. Nearly all respondents (99%) agreed that the cost savings should be passed on to registrants as a reduction in fees and nearly two-thirds (61%) wanted the reduction in fees to be focused on the highest fee of £750.

You can download the full results of the consultation here.

Fee reduction

As a result of the consultation a reduction of 10% in the registration fee of £750 was proposed and was agreed by Council on 29 March 2012, resulting in a new fee of £675.00. It is also proposed that the fee reduction takes effect from 9 May 2012. This date has been chosen for two reasons. First, an amendment needs to be made to the existing rules governing registration fees, so there needs to be an adequate period of time between the Council meeting and the introduction of the new fees rules in order to obtain Privy Council approval of the new rules; second, over 2000 registrants have an annual renewal date of 9 May with the remaining majority renewing in the following months so, for maximum benefit, this is the preferred date for the change to take place.

The papers about the results of the consultation and the amendments to fees rules that Council will consider are available, along with the rest of the papers for the Council meeting of 29 March on the Meetings page of this website.

Registrants who renew their registration in May, and who will be the first to be affected by the proposed reduction in fees, will be informed about this in their renewal letters. The cost review will continue with the aim of seeking further reductions for osteopaths in subsequent years.

Downloading consultation documents

Please note that to download the consultation documents, you will need Adobe Reader version 7 or later on your computer. Click here to download a free copy of the latest Adobe Reader software.