The Nursing and Midwifery Council has proposed an increase in their registration fees to £48 a year from August 2004.

Registration fees paid to regulatory bodies are required to gain a licence to practise.

However, the amount individuals pay varies enormously. Within the health professions, those registered with the NMC currently pay the equivalent of £20 a year while others pay their regulatory body as much as £1,000 a year.

Forum Response: Nursing and Midwifery Council

Stuart Skyte, head of communications at the NMC, told ePolitix.com: "We have no doubt at all that self-regulation should mean self-regulation and not state regulation.

"That means the individual professional being an autonomous practitioner, accountable for what they do and responsible for keeping up to date. But it also means the individual paying for their licence to practise in the public interest.

"Regulation is a complex business and, as can be seen from what professionals have to pay, cannot be managed effectively without adequate resources."

Forum Response: General Insurance Standards Council

Chris Woodburn, chief executive of GISC, told ePolitix.com: "Firms offering general insurance products (such as household, motor, travel, and business insurances) can currently operate without their sales, advice and service standards being regulated.

"However, some 6,000 firms have voluntarily committed to the independent self-regulatory body GISC.

"Following consultations with the industry prior to its launch in July 2000, GISC concluded that its membership should relate to the entire firm to be regulated, and that the regulatory fees should be based on each firm's revenue from general insurance activities.

"So, while a firm's application for GISC membership requires information on key individuals within a firm, the fees relate to each member firm and not to individuals. Any individual within a firm could have some effect on a policyholder's insurance contract, and to select only customer-facing individuals, for example, for individual registration suggests that other employees have lesser responsibilities.

"GISC has always maintained that all employees involved in general insurance activities should be competent to undertake their work, and should be trained, assessed and supervised accordingly. So effectively GISC's regulatory fee covers the regulation of all employees.

"I would also point out that, while GISC does not prescribe specific qualifications, we do believe that qualifications play an important role in demonstrating employees' competence and in this respect professional bodies such as the Chartered Insurance Institute have particular relevance. Customers are often enormously reassured by professional qualifications."

Forum Response: General Social Care Council

Mike Wardle, director of standards and regulation for the General Social Care Council, told ePolitix.com: "Registration is in effect a licence to practise that demonstrates a social care worker's professional level and abilities and is a contract between the individual worker (rather than the employer) and the GSCC.

"We set an annual registration fee for qualified social workers at £30 following consultation with the sector."The GSCC started to register qualified social workers in April this year, which will do much to promote higher standards of care for service users, and put registered social workers on a similar footing to nurses and other professions, many of whom have been regulated for decades."