Licence fee review 2025
Here are some frequently asked questions regarding the GLAA licence fee review. This page will be updated weekly.
Monday 31 March
As previously communicated, a review of the GLAA Licensing fees has been conducted and today, Monday 31st March 2025, the Statutory Instrument (SI) was laid before Parliament. Following affirmation of the SI the costs associated with the application and renewal of a GLAA licence will rise on Monday 28th April 2025.
The new fees are -
| Annual turnover | Fee band | Application or renewal fee | Inspection fee |
| £10 million or more | A | £4,000 | £4,500 |
| From £5 million to less than £10 million | B | £3,100 | £3,720 |
| From £1 million to less than £5 million | C | £1,860 | £3,330 |
| Less than £1 million | D | £620 | £2,870 |
Should you wish to read more about the SI please use this link The Gangmasters (Licensing Conditions) (Amendment) (Fees) Rules 2025
Week 4 Friday 21 March
Question
In our area in Lincolnshire many Labour Provider margins are just not good enough many of our clients only pay us 30-32% on top of the National Living Wage extra fees will run us down more.
Answer
The GLAA publish indicative charge rates for businesses in the licensable sector to help ensure there is a level playing field for all businesses: GLAA Brief 83 - Charge Rate Guidance - April 2024 - GLAA This guidance sets out the minimum charge rates that a business would need to achieve to be compliant with all of legal requirements around supplying and paying workers. We recognise there is pressure on businesses now and so we have gained an agreement with the Home Office to continue to subsidise the provision of regulated services. However, we must reduce the level of subsidy which the taxpayer is picking up.
Question
We are a company in Kazakhstan with GLAA since 2023, and we can not get a contract with the UK company to provide recruiting services, what is the reason?
Answer
These are commercial arrangements that the GLAA has no control over. All businesses who supply workers into the fresh produce sector in the UK must have a GLAA licence. The decision as to which businesses to work with are matters for those businesses who are sourcing workers to do work in the UK as a visa sponsor. There are currently six scheme operators for the seasonal worker scheme:
-
Concordia
-
Fruitful Jobs
-
Pro-force
-
HOPS
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Re Recruitment (poultry only)
-
Agri HR
Response to ALP to fees increase questions
1. How many licence holders are there within each band?
At the start of March 2025, we had the following -
|
Band |
A |
B |
C |
D |
Total |
|
Number |
61 |
60 |
229 |
792 |
1,142 |
2. What are the costs of licensing, application inspection and compliance compared to application, renewal and inspection fee receipts for the most recent financial year and for the current financial year to date?
This has not been completed for the current financial year, but we have produced the following breakdown for financial year 2023-24.
|
Income £’000 |
Full costs £’000 |
Surplus/ (deficit) £’000 |
Fee recovery actual £’000 |
|
1,226 |
4,725 |
(3,499) |
26% |
3. What proportion of GLAA overheads are allocated to the licensing and compliance functions and what is the rationale for this split?
It was 49% in 2023-24 (from our audited accounts).
The split is based on operational staffing, including those working fully on regulation activity and a share of operational staff - intelligence and investigations who work on regulation and wider enforcement activity.
We also exclude operational staff that work fully on enforcement (for example the team that deal with prosecutions).
4. Your webinar mentioned that the Home Office will continue to fund some of the cost of regulation. What is the annual value of that funding?
This will vary – but was estimated at £3.4m.
5. What happened to the GLAA proposals (as per the GLAA Board Papers) for an additional two bands and a three-year phased implementation of fee increases? Were other options proposed by the Home Office?
The review of fees was conducted by the GLAA and approved by the GLAA Board. All of the options were considered by the Board but it was felt that it would be more appropriate to introduce a simple increase this year when considering the organisations incumbent move into the Fair Work Agency (which will overhaul GLAA’s existing fee structure). The Home Office were content to support an inflationary increase as a step along the path to full costs recovery, in line with the requirements of HM Treasury's Managing Public Money. The Home Office Minster will sign off the fee increase but it is not the role of the Home Office to identify different options.
6. What alternative efficiencies and funding options have been explored, and why have they been discounted?
The GLAA carried out an extensive review of the licensing scheme processes in 2023 and identified and implemented a new model for more efficient delivery of this work. This has delivered a reduction in the time taken to process applications and an increase in the level of inspections of licensed businesses plus more investigations of unlicensed businesses. The GLAA’s activity has been subsidised by the taxpayer as there have been no increases made to the licence fee structure since 2009/10. The new fee charges will address some of that shortfall whilst allowing the GLAA to deliver an excellent regulatory service. As an arm’s length body of the Home Office, the GLAA is expected to meet the requirements of Managing Public Money which sets out that public sector fees should meet the full costs of the service it provides and neither produces a loss nor a surplus.
7. What outcomes has the GLAA produced within the most recent financial year, and for the current financial year to date, that demonstrate the value of licensing? ALP has asked for such data many times and has had no response to the formal request for data that we sent in September 2024 and followed up in January this year. Please see the list attached for your convenience.
The GLAA publishes data in the Annual Report and Accounts. glaa-ara-2023-24-web-version-1.pdf
8. Has approval for the proposed 55% cost increase been granted by the Secretary of State and the Treasury? If not, what is the proposed timescale for this?
The final decision hasn’t yet been taken but both HMT and the Home Office Secretary of State have been fully engaged with the proposals. The final decision will be taken by the end of March.
9. Please provide a copy of the new or amended secondary legislation that permits this proposed change.
The SI will be published here: https://statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk/, once it has been laid in Parliament.
10. With the publication of your annual report and accounts for 2023/24, please can you explain why the cost of licensing nearly doubled from £2.5m in 2022-23 to £4.73m in 2023/24, whilst enforcement costs remained steady?
We review cost apportionment annually as part of producing our annual report and accounts each year. The change in costs was driven by an increase in regulation activity in our National Investigation team (Application Inspection, Compliance Inspection and Compliance New Business Inspections) compared to our wider enforcement activity. We also cleared a backlog of applications in 2023-24. The cost model also apportions other corporate overheads based on this operational activity.
Week 3 Friday 14 March
Question
Are there plans to regulate and charge ALL sectors GLAA investigate (nail bars & car washes)? It seems unfair that our rates are covering sectors that don't pay.
The GLAA not only regulates the supply of workers to the fresh produce sector but also has powers to investigate modern slavery across the whole labour market (in England and Wales). However, the licence fee does not cover the cost of enforcement activity that we carry out outside of the regulated sector. These costs are picked up by the Home Office.
Week 2 Friday 7 March
Question
Why is the top bracket £10M turnover as it seems unreasonable that a business turning over £10M has the same fees as those who turn over significantly higher.
Answer
Following the consultation in 2009/10, the fee bands were set to reflect the breadth of the labour market. During the recent review, we considered several options but it was felt that an inflationary rise would be the most appropriate increase at this point. All businesses who currently hold a licence will pay the increase when they renew their licence. When we carry out the next review of fees, we will look at the number and range of fee bands, however, even if more bands were to be introduced, it is likely that there would still be a rise across all fee bands to cover the cost of the licensing scheme.
Week 1 Friday 28th February
Question
Please can the GLAA advise where / how they expect agencies to find / generate extra margin to pay higher licensing fees?
Clients continue to push us to lower rates, the economy as it is, where do we find the money to pay increased fees? Our industry is being decimated.
Answer
The rise in fees for applying for and renewing a GLAA licence will not cover the full cost of regulation but instead will rise cumulatively in line with inflation since the last fee review in 2009.
We recognise there is pressure on businesses at the moment and that is why we have gained an agreement with the Home Office to continue to heavily subsidise the provision of regulated services. However, we have to reduce the level of subsidy by the taxpayer.
Question submitted by Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)
How is the GLAA tackling unlicensed activity? Members want to see how the GLAA is supporting compliant businesses with a level playing field.
Answer
The identification of non-compliant and unlicensed businesses is one of the GLAA’s operational priorities.
The Gangmasters licensing standards state:
“4.1 The GLAA adopts a proportionate approach when applying the licensing standards. The GLAA is concerned with identifying the more persistent and systematic exploitation of workers rather than concentrating on isolated non-compliances, unless such a non-compliance is ‘critical’ in its own right.”
“4.3 Where non-compliance is found, where appropriate the GLAA will refer this non-compliance to our partners who may decide to take action separate to any action the GLAA may take.
In the current year to date the GLAA has
- The average processing time for licence decisions has improved from 159 days last financial year to 41 days this year.
- triggered 141 compliance investigations and made 145 decisions on new licence applications.
- refused 15 licences as a direct result of critical non-compliances with the licensing standards, predominantly for Critical 1.1 violations.
- revoked 13 licences because of major non-compliance breaches of critical Licensing Standards.
- issued 13 licences, at the point of application, with ALCs where non-compliance against non-critical breeches of licensing standards have been identified during the application process. These Licences are given a higher risk grading based on their non-compliances, which will trigger a following compliance inspection to assure compliance with the ALCs. These non-compliances are often surrounding issues with pay and contracts.
- issued 10 ALCs to Licence holder businesses where non-compliance against non-critical breeches of licensing standards have been identified following an investigation or inspection. These Licences are given a higher risk grading based on their non-compliances, which will trigger a following compliance inspection to assure compliance with the ALCs.
- 50 criminal investigations into unlicensed gangmaster activity have been instigated by the GLAA this year-to-date. These investigations help ensure that labour providers comply with licensing standards and that workers are protected from exploitation and abuse.
Question
How do you justify a 51.44% increase being acceptable? You say cumulative increase from 2009, you have been subsidised all these years so why cumulative?
Answer
The GLAA Licensing Fee has been heavily subsidised by the taxpayer since 2009. Managing Public Money principles set by HM Treasury state that any regulated services provided should be fully funded by the licence holders.
The GLAA and Home Office understand that to ask licence holders to fully fund the total amount required to provide the current regulated services will be too great a burden on businesses, at this time. However, it is also recognised that business has benefitted from no licence fee rises since 2009. The GLAA has not received any inflationary increases during this time and the current increase brings the inflation rate up to date, enabling the GLAA to continue to provide regulatory services.
Answers reviewed and approved by the Executive Leadership team 20 March 2025