Companies House

Press Notice
CHPN 01/05 (GEN)
DATE 31 January 2005

NEW COMPANIES HOUSE FEES

Following approval from both Houses of Parliament the new statutory fees will be charged from 1 February.

Tim Moss, Director of Corporate Strategy, said:

“Over recent years Companies House has achieved considerable efficiencies and has encouraged customers to switch from paper to electronic services. This campaign has been particularly successful as regards provision of information from the companies register. We now provide over 95% of information electronically. As a result, the cost of providing many of our services has reduced and we have been able to lower many fees for information ordered electronically. Where we have increased fees, this reflects the increased costs of providing paper based services as customers move to dealing with us electronically.

“Our intention is to make contact with us easier for customers and to provide better security by increasing the availability of electronic services. We have an ambitious programme to be able to receive over 90% of documents electronically by the end of 2007 and to have 75% take-up by March 2008. This will allow significant cost savings to be passed on to customers.”

The January edition of Government Computing Magazine profiles Dr. Mike Rodd, Director of External Relations at the British Computer Society, who talks about problems facing government in delivering IT projects. He points to the Companies House website as a notable success and says that the key is to be realistic, ensuring that the people in charge of the detail really have the skills to make it work.

Companies House has been working for some time to develop modern e-services for its customers. The system for electronic incorporation has substantially reduced the time taken to register a new company; and accounts for 70% of incorporations in Great Britain.

Mark Pacey, Director of e-Transformation and Technology, said:

“the number of companies being incorporated is increasing. The speed of turnaround helps to reduce their costs and get into business more quickly. The company can then go on to file its annual return over the internet and from February 1 2005 this will be possible to do at a fee of half that for the paper annual return, saving each company using the service £15 per transaction.”

NOTES FOR EDITORS

• Companies House is the DTI agency, with responsibility for the incorporation and dissolution of companies; for the registration of information supplied by them under the Companies Act and related legislation, and for making this information available to the public.
• Companies House charges a fee for the incorporation of a company, for the filing of documents during the company’s life and for the provision of information from the Companies Register to members of the public. Each of Companies House’s fees is calculated on the cost of providing the separate services.
• To see a full list of the new prices go to www.companieshouse.gov.uk.