In response to feedback from members, the General Optical Council (GOC) has published its annual report for 2008-9 in online format only.
GOC chairman Geoff Harris said the new online-only annual report was part of a strategy of being cost efficient and the use of online and electronic publications has reduced the Council's general publications budget by a quarter.
Revealing its year-on-year performance in numbers, the Council said that across the UK 19,613,579 sight tests had been carried out, 294,997 CET points were awarded and 990 cases recorded by the Optical Consumer Complaints Service.
The GOC's total turnover increased to £3,367,817 in comparison to £3,295,219 recorded for the year before. However, operating expenditure also increased to £4,018,773 from £3,454,368.
During the course of the year, 31 of the GOC's 23,319 registrants were referred to the fitness to practise committee and six registrants were erased from the registers.
The annual report also revealed that 150 fitness to practise complaints were received by the Council and involved 195 individual registrants or registered businesses. The most common single cause for complaint (27) was spectacle prescriptions, while 23 were for practitioners' conduct. A total of 135 complaints were made against optometrists and 32 against dispensing opticians, 69 complaints resulted in no further action and 14 were withdrawn.