What do the Land Registry and the FSA have in common?
Posted on 25 April 2009 by
Answer. Both have recently announced an increase of about 30% in their fees and both attempted to justify the increase on the basis that after deciding how much they wanted to spend that was the percentage increase needed to balance the budget. In the private sector it is done the other way round – the costs the business can afford are based on the revenue expected to be generated.
The Land Registry’s excuse for their huge increase in fees is that the smaller number of housing transactions means their income has to be generated from a smaller number of people and so the lazy option is just to impose a huge increase on those hapless people who have no choice but to pay whatever they demand. There is no evidence of any serious consideration of cutting out some of the fat to reflect the lower volume of business, no doubt because as they operate a monopoly and their fees are like taxes they can get away with charging what they like.
Over at the FSA about 10% of this year’s budget is being used to pay staff bonuses. No doubt some of the staff deserve a bonus but so do many people in the private sector. However, many of the latter won’t get one because their employer operates in the real world and thus doesn’t have the luxury of being able to fleece their “customers” by imposing a huge increase in their charges. Indeed, in many cases their employees will be grateful to still have a job, even if it is on a reduced salary.
Maybe the Competition Commission’s time would be better spent investigating monopoly state sponsored organisations like the Land Registry and the FSA rather than their frequent and pointless investigations into our supermarkets, which by and large compete strongly and offer their customers plenty of choice. And talking of monopolies, why is there only one Competition Commission?
Categories: House and home, Personal finance, Property market, Regulation
Comments
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MadAboutProperty says:
This post is so inaccurate and misinformed as to be unbelievable! Making comparisons between Land Registry (not 'The Land Registry' as it is constantly referred to) and the FSA where no such comparisons exist, and implying similarities which are entirely fictitious.
Land Registry's fee income has been reduced massively over a very short time from late last year to early this year, with very little time to respond. There are also certain costs which stay the same regardless of the income, particularly for instance in IT where the same infrastructure and support are required regardless of the level of usage, and the same development costs for future systems still exist (most of which Land Registry is statutorily committed to).
The poster refers to the fact that the FSA is spending 10% of its budget on staff bonuses; I have no way of knowing if that is true but I do know that the Corporate Bonus paid to Land Registry staff has not been paid this year, as an explicit response to the economic climate.
Finally the poster mentions that there is 'no evidence of any serious consideration of cutting out some of the fat', well the search for evidence obviously did not go very far.
Land Registry already had a programme of office mergers in order to cut costs, and this has been accelerated in recent months. Allied with this there has also been a major reduction in staff costs with staff numbers reducing significantly. Also it should be mentioned that major savings have been made in the costs for stationery, office cleaning and transport (amongst others) as well as looking at all contracts with external suppliers with a view to reducing costs.
In summary, please ensure that you have the facts before posting what is purely malicious speculation.
Land Registry's fee income has been reduced massively over a very short time from late last year to early this year, with very little time to respond. There are also certain costs which stay the same regardless of the income, particularly for instance in IT where the same infrastructure and support are required regardless of the level of usage, and the same development costs for future systems still exist (most of which Land Registry is statutorily committed to).
The poster refers to the fact that the FSA is spending 10% of its budget on staff bonuses; I have no way of knowing if that is true but I do know that the Corporate Bonus paid to Land Registry staff has not been paid this year, as an explicit response to the economic climate.
Finally the poster mentions that there is 'no evidence of any serious consideration of cutting out some of the fat', well the search for evidence obviously did not go very far.
Land Registry already had a programme of office mergers in order to cut costs, and this has been accelerated in recent months. Allied with this there has also been a major reduction in staff costs with staff numbers reducing significantly. Also it should be mentioned that major savings have been made in the costs for stationery, office cleaning and transport (amongst others) as well as looking at all contracts with external suppliers with a view to reducing costs.
In summary, please ensure that you have the facts before posting what is purely malicious speculation.
Posted on Friday, 14-08-09 20:51 by MadAboutProperty
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