News from the General Optical Council 

News from the General Optical Council 

The General Optical Council (GOC) held its first meeting of the year on 19 March 2025.

Business plan and budget 2025-26

Council approved the external business plan and accompanying budget for 2025-26, which cover the first year of the GOC’s new corporate strategy. A £300k allocation from the strategic reserves was approved to fund potential key projects across the year, including £210k over three years for an education knowledge hub to further support education providers in implementing the GOC’s updated education and training requirements.

The GOC plans to undertake a series of thematic reviews to support its strategic objective of ‘preventing harm through agile regulation’. Council decided the topic for the first thematic review would be ‘Commercial Practices and Patient Safety’, following advice from the Advisory Panel earlier this month. Council pressed the need for sensitivity and objectivity throughout the review, ensuring analysis remained data-driven and potential biases were prevented.

Other key projects in the business plan include introducing a dedicated Project Delivery Unit and the upcoming GOC office move. Council noted that the office relocation is estimated to save £1m over the next five years. The plan also includes several pieces of work towards the GOC’s new strategic objective ‘creating fairer and more inclusive eye care services’, including completing the lived experience research among patient groups and registrants to explore the difficulties faced in accessing, using, and delivering eye care.

The plan will be published shortly.

EDI action plan 2025-26

Council approved the year’s EDI action plan, delivering objectives from the first year of the EDI strategy 2025-30 that sits alongside the next GOC corporate strategy. In its recent performance review of the GOC, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) commended the GOC on its proactive work to embed and promote EDI principles throughout the organisation. The PSA expects health regulators to examine potential unfair outcomes in Fitness to Practise referrals as a priority area of concern. Last year, the GOC established an unfair outcomes working group to develop the methodology needed to address any gaps in data collection and analysis. In 2025-26, the GOC will conduct a review of these findings.

Another key area in the plan is the integration of social mobility considerations across the GOC’s work, such as in data collection. Other projects include developing data practice, reviewing the current system of equality impact assessment, and reinforcing support for staff networks.

Member fees 2025-26

Council also approved the member fee schedule for 2025-26. The fees given to members of GOC Committees and Panels are informed by annual benchmarking activity, conducted with other health regulators. Following a review of the benchmarked data, the GOC Remuneration Committee recommended no general increase to member fees for the coming year.

Corporate Safeguarding policy

The GOC has developed a new Corporate Safeguarding policy, drawn from self-assessment of its own compliance with the Charity Governance Code. This provides a clear framework for raising and/or responding to safeguarding concerns and supports the GOC in taking proactive measures to protect vulnerable individuals from harm, abuse, or neglect. Council highlighted the importance of this policy and commented that its future induction and training sessions should be extended to all GOC members, not just staff. The discussion also considered the need for regular policy updates and to ensure the policy and training remain specific to the working context of the GOC. The policy was approved, subject to minor amendments.

Council appointments to committees

Council approved a reshuffle of committee appointments, in light of its significant recent member turnover. Two further members are set to be announced in the next month. Chair Dr Anne Wright thanked outgoing members Josie Forte, Mike Galvin, Clare Minchington, and Roshni Samra, for their dedicated service to the GOC. Council looks forward to welcoming four new members from 1 April.