Good question, Tarang, but may not be simple to answer due to the multitude of varibles. Here in the United States, The RAB is the national Accreditation body which issues the accreditation for a registrar to operate, and I'm am sure that the general concepts below may be different for your country.
Auditors can apply for registration to the RAB by filling out a pretty simple set of documents listing evidence of education, work place experience (this becomes the basis for the field of experience listed in your files), audit competancy (passing a certified 36 hour Lead course or holding a CQA and passing a short course), and any audit experience from the past three years. There is a initial US$100.00 fee to review the auditor's application. that plus the first year's registration fees must accompany the application. To become a registered auditor, this is rather cut and dry, so to speak.
The requirements to become a registrar are far more intense. There is a rather large fee just to order the application which is very long. A much larger review fee also must accompany the prospective registrar's application. A whopping fee for the first year's accreditation is also required to be sent with the application. This fee is only for a singular portion of an SIC Code that the new registrar will be able work in assessing industries. Each additional SIC Code portion that the registrar wishes to be able to operate in will incur additional fees (again not cheap). Now since there is not any reasonable registrar wanting to go into business auditing only a very small portion of industries, it becomes necessary for registrars to have as many SIC Codes that they can manage to get. However, to get the required SIC Code listings, the registrar needs to provide a very ample supply of evidence that the assessors on their staff are indeed well qualified to audit that particular industry....
So the cost for registrars keeps on going; it goes on, and on, and on just like the Energizer Bunny.
Now how much the national body charges the regisrtar for auditing your organization??? I do not feel that they charge the way you have described, at least not in the U. S., anyway. Here, the RAB gets their dollars up front, so to speak at the time of accreditation and annually after that. After receiving their accreditation, a registrar can work as much as they want without paying additional premiums to the RAB (I believe). In your or any other country I do not know how the national body charges the registrars that operate within their domain, I would like to think that it is somewhat like our system here since it might be a cheaper way than paying a registrar a daily rate and then they must cut in (rebate) the national body a "piece of the pie", but different nations have always been known to do things differently.
I'm not saying our system is perfect, but it does work. I also do think that the huge cost of just becoming a registrar here in the U. S. is the reason that registration cost are so high for organzations. I am also pretty sure the various costs associated with becoming a registrar here is to keep companies that should not be in the business out of the registration process. The RAB is a small function of the ASQ and I couldn't imagine them trying to manage, say, 500 different registrars operating here, although the competition would drive down the cost for registration assessments. This possibly would also greatly lower the quality of the registration process, possibly, not sure.
I hope this has been fruitful for you
