At the September Board meeting the Board agreed the 2016 budget and decided to hold the 2016 retention fee at £107. The Board have budgeted for an increase in running costs in 2016 as the Register grows but this is offset by forecast additional income from new admissions. The Board reiterated its commitment to on-going investment in online services to enable ARB to respond flexibly as demand increases.

We will shortly be sending out both a paper invoice, as required by the Architects Act 1997, and an email to all architects to remind them of the fee and the deadline.

Retention Fee Top 10 Tips

Last year many of you commented that you would like more information on how to ensure that you receive reminders about the retention fee so we have come up with top 10 tips. We will shortly be sending out an email containing these tips to all architects who do not have a direct debit in place. They will include a new text reminder service and a diary reminder tool.

Avoid spam problems

We have received feedback from architects who say that, on occasion, our retention fee reminder emails get stuck in their spam folders. Please add info@arbmail.org.uk  to your email safe sender list to prevent this from happening. We will send all of this year’s retention fee communications from this email address.