You can read the original consultation and the proposal to increase registration fees on our website here. Thank you to everyone who took part in the consultation.
The decision
The SSSC’s Council met on 27 February and has decided to increase the registration fees, with some reductions to the original proposal to take account of the views we heard through the consultation. The reductions we have made reflect our commitment to support the lowest paid parts of the workforce.
The level of registration fees is set out in our Registration Rules. Any changes to our Rules need the consent of Scottish Ministers. Scottish Ministers have approved the new fee structure which will start from 1 April 2025.
You can read the consultation analysis on our website here.
New fee structure
The SSSC’s Council has decided to go ahead with a new fee structure fee from 1 April 2025 but with the following reductions from the proposal we consulted on. These reductions respond to some of the key points raised in the consultation.
- Postponing the increase in fees for support workers and practitioners until 2026/27.
- No increase to the fee for student social workers.
- Adding a new fee level for the category of manager of care services that will be frozen at £80 over the five years.
This means that the annual fees will change as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Current and proposed fees
| 2024/25 Current fee |
Proposed increase per year over five years | 25/26 | 26/27 | 27/28 | 28/29 | 29/30 | |
| Social worker | £80 | £8 | £88 | £96 | £104 | £112 | £120 |
| Managers of care services and inspectors | £80 | 0 | £80 | £80 | £80 | £80 | £80 |
| Supervisor/ practitioner | £35 | £4 but £0 increase in first year |
£35 | £39 | £43 | £47 | £51 |
| Support worker | £25 | £3 but £0 increase in first year |
£25 | £28 | £31 | £34 | £37 |
| Social work student | £15 | 0 | £15 | £15 | £15 | £15 | £15 |
Why are the fees increasing?
Across Scotland we have a shared commitment among the SSSC, the Scottish Government, people working in social services, employers and the public to ensure that the workforce has the right skills, qualifications, values and standards to deliver high quality care. Registration of the workforce is central to delivering that commitment. And we can only continue to achieve this effectively by changing our fees.
The intention when the SSSC was established was for registration fees to cover the cost of registering the workforce. Currently fees cover approximately 60% of that cost with Scottish Government providing the rest of the funding. Overall Scottish Government funds approximately 70% of the SSSC.
Fees were increased for the first time in 2017, and it was a large one-off increase, with feedback from that consultation and the then Minister that future increases should be small and frequent. The intention was to review fees in 2020 however we delayed any increase due to the pandemic and its impact on this sector and have absorbed the inflationary cost since then.
We are committed to continuous improvement and our drive to be an efficient and effective organisation. Since 2017 our annual cost per registrant has decreased from £154 to £112, which is the lowest of the social work and healthcare regulators we benchmarked against.
Following the consultation and your views, we looked at different fee increase options which the SSSC Council considered along with the comments and responses at its meeting on 27 February 2025.
The consultation response
Before consulting on the proposal, we talked with key partners and stakeholders through our regular meetings and through the Stakeholder Advisory Group.
We publicised the consultation throughout the 12 weeks directly to all registrants, countersignatories, employers and newsletter subscribers through SSSC news, our email newsletter and generally via social media (46 posts across all platforms) along with regular direct engagement with key partners including representative bodies and unions.
We sent seven email newsletters to around 180,000 people each time with an average of 4,500 people opening the article on the fee consultation in each edition.
We received 3,178 responses, 2,935 (92%) of these were from registrants, 161 from employers and 82 from other bodies.
Of this number, 2,568 (81%) did not agree with the some or all of the fee structure we proposed.
You can read the consultation analysis on our website here. This includes information on the responses and comments.
Many of the text comments demonstrated unhappiness at an increase in fees, particularly in the current economic climate. There were also comments about matters outwith our control, such as the impact of increased employer national insurance contributions, the decision in 2022 for Scottish Government to pay fees for those employed by local authorities as part of the settlement with COSLA and the general concern about the different funding arrangements for
private and voluntary provider versus local authority providers.
Alternative suggestions
We asked a question where you could provide alternative options to be considered.
Many of the responses proposed no fee or a lower fee. Here are some of the suggestions made and our responses.
| You said | Our response |
| Scottish Government or employers to pay all fees | We are aware that, like local authority staff, some other registrants have their fees paid as part of their contractual arrangements with their employer. This is not in our control. Our legislation only permits us to charge fees to registrants. |
| New fee level for managers of care services |
We recognise there is a difference in role and often in salary between a social worker and a registered care service manager, including the requirement for social workers to be qualified before they can practice. We will change the original proposal and introduce a new fee level for managers of care services that is a level between social workers and supervisors/practitioners. (Care Inspectorate inspectors would also fall into this category). This introduces the new fee level for this group at the existing £80 fee which will then be then frozen for the five year period. |
| No increase for social work students |
Scottish Government has improved support to social work students through bursaries, placement grants and hardship funds. We will not increase the fee for social work students which will remain frozen at £15 per year for the five year period. |
| No increase for the lowest paid |
Fees are currently tapered so that generally fee level is in line with the seniority of the role. You raised that the impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions was not included into current contracts and chargeable rates. For those employers who do pay their workforce’s registration fees this will add another unplanned financial burden. We will delay the increase for support workers, practitioners and supervisors for a year so that it won’t come in until 2026. |
| Fees should be based on salary/sector and part/full time hours not the Register part |
Regulators across the UK do not link registration fees to job title or role but to the category on the Register. It is not feasible for the SSSC to determine appropriate salary levels or establish a fair sliding scale. Public sector workers may work part-time or earn less than their private sector counterparts and many may work multiple jobs or have zero-hour contracts. Rules around full and part-time hours vary by organisation, creating the potential for fee discrepancies. Verifying salaries or part time hours would require additional resources, create opportunities for fraud and would face employer resistance due to verification requirements. Changes would disrupt efficient processes like the green channel applications and the annual declaration process, which currently has minimal employer intervention. |
| Fees paid by instalments |
Payment by instalments would require reverting to the previous debt management process to manage missed instalments including a process to chase instalments, remove registrants who missed instalments and make decisions about the cost effectiveness of recovering outstanding fees. As well as requiring additional staff and additional systems development, it would risk decreasing fee income due to the turnover of people on our register. Given annual fee levels, the cost and lost income would have a significant impact on fee income. |
Next steps
As well as giving your views on the proposed fee structure, your comments during the consultation about the SSSC in general highlighted several things for us to consider, including what some of you know about the role of the SSSC and how you feel about registration and regulation.
In our 2024 registrant survey, 79% of those responding said that they think that their registration with the SSSC is beneficial and 70% told us that they feel being registered makes them feel valued for the work they do, with 73% telling us that they think the work of the SSS promotes the value of this sector and the workforce.
We’ve seen an increasingly positive response to our questions on being registered over the last two years and we want that to continue to improve.
From the consultation we know that we have more work to do to continue to improve understanding of our role and the benefits of being registered. We will better explain our role as a regulator which is to improve standards and protect the public, rather than the role of a membership body which some of you think we are, and we will do more to highlight the support we provide for developing your practice and careers in this sector.
This will be a priority for us and we will start working on this now as we develop our next strategic plan for 2026-2029.
Impact assessment
Read our Impact Assessment: Review of Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) Registration fees.