A consultation document outlining plans to implement a new scheme for monitoring equality and diversity in the optical sector has been published by the GOC.
The Council said this week that collecting and analysing information about registrants' gender, ethnicity and disabilities will allow it to meet statutory requirements to report to Parliament on equality issues and to meet its own equality and diversity objectives.
The consultation aims to get feedback from stakeholders on the GOC's registration committee recommendations on implementing a scheme that will collect the necessary data.
Questions include whether equality and diversity data should be stored against an individual's record or whether the completion of a monitoring form should be optional.
GOC registrar Peter Coe said: 'It's critical that we get our monitoring scheme right. Having this data will help us make sure that regulation is fair and reduce inequality.'