APPENDIX 3
Memorandum from the Department for Education
and Skills
EDUCATION
(QCA LEVY) REGULATIONS
2002 (S.I. 2002/435)
1. The Committee requested a memorandum on the following
points.
(1) In regulation 5(3), should "the number
of awards" read "the number of leviable awards"?
(2) It seems to the Committee that regulation
6(1) and (2) is drafted in an unnecessarily complex and obscure
way. The following version appears to the Committee to have the
same effect. Does the Department agree that these provisions could
have been expressed more simply and clearly?
"Calculation of levy - supplementary
6. - (1) This regulation applies where -
(2) The amount of the levy for the first accounting
period to follow the occurrence of the relevant event shall be
adjusted to take account of the difference between the actual
and estimated number of leviable awards made during the relevant
period.
(3) Where the adjustment under paragraph (2) would
produce a negative amount of levy, the levy shall be treated as
zero, and a similar adjustment shall be made in respect of each
subsequent accounting period until a positive sum is produced.
(4) In this regulation a "relevant event"
is ¼¼
(as before)."
2. On the first point the Department agrees that
"the number of awards" should read "the number
of leviable awards" and the regulations will be amended before
the first occasion on which an estimate could be made under regulation
5(3).
3. On the second point the Department agrees that
the drafting approach suggested by the Committee expresses the
point more simply and clearly than the provisions currently in
the regulations although the Department would not necessarily
agree that regulations 6(1) and (2) are drafted in an obscure
way. A point which does arise is whether the Committee's draft
deals with the case where more than one auditors' certificate
is submitted late at the same time, with the result that there
will be more than one separate adjustment to the levy for a single
accounting period. The regulations sought to deal with this point
by the words in brackets in the definitions of B and C. The Department
will work on adding this element to the Committee's approach with
a view to a possible amendment of regulation 6.
25th March 2002
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