GDC given three choices for ARF and BDA responds
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- Published: Friday, 24 October 2014 07:47
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When it meets on October 30 under the chairmanship of William Moyes, the General Dental Council (GDC) will be given three choices for the Annual Retention Fee (ARF) in 2015: £945, £890 or £850. It will also discuss its response to the recent consultation and the auditor’s report. Meanwhile the BDA has raised objections to the GDC taking the money before its legal challenge is heard.
The BDA has responded by accusing the GDC of cynicism in its response to the legal challenge initiated by the BDA. The GDC has sought to delay the legal process, arguing that there is no need for urgency as it intends to start drawing down fees from dentists during November and the judicial review, even if fast-tracked, will not be heard before the start of December. Once it has dentists’ money, the regulator says the timing of the argument about propriety is immaterial – proposing that the hearing can take place sometime in 2015.
In a robustly worded objection to this assertion, BDA lawyers have sought to impress upon the judge deciding the matter that nearly 41,000 dentists will be being asked to hand over fees that are yet to be legally validated. The BDA says that the proper way to go about this is to decide whether this is lawful before - not after - the money is taken. It goes on to say that the GDC’s proposition gives no detail of how it will pay the money back if it is shown to be wrong – which the BDA has described as wholly unacceptable.
The Chair of the BDA’s Principal Executive Committee, Mike Armstrong, said: “This latest round of stalling is consistent with an astonishingly cavalier attitude demonstrated by the GDC throughout. The regulator can be in no doubt about the strength of feeling or about the fact that its methods have been seriously challenged. We have sought to raise legitimate legal questions and obtain answers. We have been met throughout with stalling, avoidance and incomplete responses. It looks like the GDC wants to engineer a position where it can pocket inflated dentists’ fees first and then argue about whether it should have done so later. We think that is simply unacceptable. It is not the kind of cynical tactics you’d expect from a statutory public body.”
The Agenda for the October 30 GDC meeting can be found at:
http://www.gdc-uk.org/Aboutus/Thecouncil/Pages/Council-meetings-2014.aspx
Papers to be discussed include:
4(a). Proposed models for setting the Annual Retention Fees 2015
4(a)(ii) Annex 2 18.09.14 - ARF Level consultation report
4(a)(iii) Annex 3 Response to ARF Fee level consultation paper
4(a)(iv) Annex 4 GDC 2014-15 ARF Assumptions Headline Report
4(a)(v) Annex 5 BDA FTI report GDC response
In a press release the GDC Chief Executive and Registrar, Evlynne Gilvarry said:
"The Council’s decision will be about ensuring we have the resources in place to be sustainable and responsive as a regulator of the dental profession in the future. There has been no increase in the ARF for four years. However, since 2011, we have seen a 110% rise in complaints since 2011 and the fact that we are having to work within an outdated statutory framework mean that the options on the table must include a significant rise in the ARF for dentists, albeit alongside a very moderate increase, or even a reduction, for dental care professionals. A key aim also is to ensure a prudent level of reserves for an organisation of our scale and remit. The Council will also be publishing a full response to the consultation, picking up on key issues of regulation that were keenly debated by the dental profession throughout the summer."
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