View from the GOC: Improving our service

We’ve been asked a few times recently about the likelihood of the government introducing plans for regulatory reform.

Along with our fellow regulators we have been pushing for various reforms for some time to help us to operate more efficiently and achieve more effective outcomes for the public.

These include changes to speed up the fitness to practise process, such us allowing us to filter out frivolous cases and reducing panel sizes, as well as powers to set more of our own rules to adapt to the fast-changing professions. We are also keen to reform business regulation and deregulate optical students.

The last year has been politically volatile, so predicting what might happen in the future is not easy. But with the Queen’s Speech passing without a mention of regulatory reform, we now know it’s unlikely that anything will be put before Parliament for at least the next couple of years.