Membership of the APCC is open to:

Membership of the APCC is open to compliance consultancy firms who support the APCC’s objectives and principles, agree to comply with the APCC Code of Ethics, which include the APCC Professional Standards, and meet the APCC eligibility criteria. To be eligible as a member a firm must provide compliance consultancy services to organisations regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom and either has, or intends to have, more than one client at a time. Firms may be companies, partnerships or sole traders.

In applying for membership a firm or organisation agrees to abide by the following as adopted by the APCC from time to time:

1. the Memorandum and Articles of Association
2. the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
3. the Grievance Procedure
4. the Professional Standards of the Association as adopted from time to time

To apply for membership for your firm please download the Membership Application form which contains full details of the application process. Once completed this form should be (i) sent electronically to the administrator for the Association at admin@apcc.org.uk with the cvs of your senior management team and (ii) printed out, signed on behalf of the applicant member and returned with your membership fee cheque to Mrs Hilary Spivey, The Association of Professional Compliance Consultants, 145 - 157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY.

Professional Partner Status

If your firm does not provide consultancy services but does provide specialist facilities or services to compliance consultancy firms or to businesses regulated by the Financial Services Authority then you may be eligible for Professional Partner status. As a Professional Partner you may have an entry in our online directory of Professional Partners, you are entitled to access the members only area of the APCC website and your staff can elect to receive members emails. The small annual fee charged for Professional Partner status is available on application.

To apply for Professional Partner status please send an email to Hilary Spivey describing your business services and provide two referees from either an FSA regulated firm or an APCC member.

The membership application form asks for details of two professional referees. These should be from a member of the governing body of an existing APCC member or an FSA regulated firm. As a matter or courtesy you should contact the referees before including them in your application. Referees should know you and your business sufficiently well to be able to express an informed opinion. The APCC will contact both referees and ask them to complete a reference request. Your application will not be considered by the Steering Council until these reference requests have been satisfactorily completed.

As part of the membership application you are asked to include the names of the persons making up your senior management team and to attach a cv for each of them with the application form. Please email the completed form with the cvs of your senior management team to admin@apcc.org.uk and then sign the form and send it with a cheque (payable to the Association of Professional Compliance Consultants) for the membership fee, to: Mrs Hilary Spivey, The Association of Professional Compliance Consultants, 145 - 157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY. More details of the application process are set out in the membership application form.

The annual membership fee rates payable for the year to 30 June 2012 are set out below. If you apply for membership after 31 December in any year the fee for the half year is 50% of the annual fee.

Note: Membership fees are calculated on the basis of the number of full time equivalent compliance consultants operating in your firm's name for the year to 30 June just finished. This will therefore include employed consultants and associate consultants brought in for specific projects or clients but will exclude consultants who do not provide FSA compliance services to your clients. Where you use part time consultants or sub-contractors then please convert these into full-time equivalents (e.g. 2 consultants working 50% of the year are equivalent to 1 consultant). Consultants operating for you who are employed by another APCC firm can be excluded from your consultant count for the purposes of the fee calculation.

On receipt of your completed application form your membership fee application cheque will be banked, this does not mean that you have been accepted for membership. In the event that you either withdraw the application or the Association does not accept your application then the Association will return the membership fee to the applicant firm less an administration fee of £75.00 plus VAT.