During his key note speech, at the SITO National Training Conference in Oxford, SIA Chief Executive John Saunders has announced that the cost of the SIA licence has now been fixed.
The application fee for the individual licence sectors has been set at £190 this will cover the licence holder for a three year period.
The money from the licence fee will go towards:
- Licensing services – the costs of issuing licences, the systems, processing, administration and criminality checks.
- Enforcement and compliance
- Communications – the cost of raising awareness about licensing and making sure that everyone within the industry knows what to do and how to get a licence.
- Infrastructure – The cost of maintaining offices and staff costs.
- Research and development – the money spent on researching the industry and how better to support it in the future.
Originally estimates for the licence application of £150 – £190 had been quoted, in order to enable the industry to factor out these costs into future financial planning. At that early stage, however, a number of the key costs for running a responsive and efficient enquiry and application service had yet to be confirmed.
These overall costs have now been fixed and the final application fee reflects the running of an efficient self-funding and non-profit making organisation and licence regime.