Profession braced for rise in retention fee

A significant increase in the retention fee for General Optical Council (GOC) registrants is highly likely according to the GOC.

The new retention fee for 2010-11 was set by GOC members at the Council's meeting on November 18, after Optician had gone to press, following a discussion of the Council's business plan and draft budget for 2010-11.

The GOC said that raised fees for registrants were due to increased costs and workload and new ways of working such as a 15 per cent rise in the number of fitness to practise (FTP) cases opened in 2009.

After FTP cases, support services such as IT, finance and office costs and then registration were cited as the greatest areas of expenditure, which was forecast to be £5.7m for 2010-11.