THE Council of the General Dental Council has increased its Annual Retention Fee for dentists from £576 to £890, an increase of over 54%, and decreased the fee for dental care professionals from £120 to £116.

This is the first increase in the ARF for dentists in four years. The annual rate of inflation during this same period ranged from between 1.5% to 2%.

According to the GDC the fees for 2015 are based on the ARF policy agreed by the Council in June 2014.  Following this policy – which links the fee directly to the cost of regulating each registrant group – the fee for dentists increases. However the fee for dental care professionals, who make up 61.1% of the profession, decreases.

Some observers have said that they see this action as a subtle way to divide and conquer the dental team, sweetening the pill for lower paid nurses, hygienists and dental technicians and clawing back a healthy chunk of money from dentists, who perhaps they consider have had it too good for too long.

The Council took an expensive route to this end result by employing KPMG, accountants to the stars, to check their figures.

GDC CEO 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...”

The BDA begs to differ. It has raised a legal objection to the increase which the GDC will be strongly defending. Less sophisticated observers are saying that the GDC is doing this purely because it can because as a regulator it has no-one to answer to. Nobody regulates the GDC, so it can do just what the heck it likes and registrants have to cough up or walk away. Can anyone think this fair?