GOC outlines problems with staged payments

Claims by the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) that the General Optical Council (GOC) had snubbed attempts to allow practitioners to spread their retention fee payments over a year have been strongly denied.

An email sent by ABDO to its members alleging that ‘the GOC has once again refused to allow registrants who need to to pay in two instalments,’ was refuted by the Council.

Clarifying why the immediate implementation of staged payments was not possible, the GOC said in a press statement: ‘The GOC has not ruled out the introduction of staged payments. However, this is not a facility we are currently able to offer. As explained in our consultation on fees, a change would be required to the registration rules to enable payment by instalments. This is due to the drafting of the rules, which are expressed in terms of a single application fee and which require a notice to be sent out by March 15 in the event of non-payment.’

Explaining that legislative change is ‘a costly, complex and time-consuming process’ which would involve a redrafting of the rules by lawyers and consultations by the department of Health and the GOC, it revealed that the minimum time in which it could achieve such a change would be around 18 months, but added ‘it could be longer’.

It also warned about possible costs and unintended consequences of such a change to its rules, such as how missing a payment would mean a practitioner was removed from the register.

‘This could mean that those registrants experiencing the most severe financial difficulties were unable to work. The additional costs of adapting our systems, following up missed instalments, and dealing with removals and restorations throughout the year would place a further burden on the fee,’ it disclosed in the statement.

Responding to suggestions that provision for staged payments could easily be provided by a third party, the GOC divulged how it had explored the possibility of working with a finance company to provide this facility without the need for legislative change. However, it concluded that the fee charged to provide the service would have been unacceptably high in relation to the registration fee, resulting in annual interest rates of over 40 per cent. It added that obligatory credit checks could exclude ‘those in the most stretched financial circumstances’.

The Council agreed that it needed to spend more time looking at the full costs and the potential risks and benefits of introducing staged payments before a final decision could be made and would carry out an impact assessment next year.