GDC Head of Regulation made redundant
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- Published: Friday, 19 September 2014 11:46
- Written by News Editor
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Neil Marshall, the Director of Regulation will be leaving the GDC on 28 November, having accepted redundancy. Changes to the top management team mean the creation two separate directorates; one to cover Registration and Operational Excellence, the other to include Fitness to Practise and Illegal Practice, each led by a director who will be members of the Executive Management Team.
The GDC explained the changes in a statement:
The Regulation Directorate includes two of the GDC's key statutory functions - Registration and Fitness to Practise. The work of this directorate has grown in size and complexity since it was initially established in 2010.
In particular: Fitness to Practise: in 2010, the number of new cases received annually was around 1500. In 2013, it was 3000.
Illegal Practice: since 2011, the volume of work handled by the Illegal Practice team has grown very significantly. This is largely due to the number of complaints about individuals conducting tooth whitening, which a High Court decision has confirmed is the ‘practice of dentistry’. However the workload has also increased due to more complaints of general illegal practice.
Registration: since 2011, the register has grown by 10% - now standing at over 100,000 registrants. During that time, there have been a number of other developments which have added to the complexity of the work done by registration teams e.g. increase in number of applications for registration from non-UK graduates and increase in demand for the Overseas Registration Exam.
In-house legal services: in 2012, a new department was established within the Fitness to Practise department aimed at handling 25% of all legal work in-house. Within a year of establishment, the objective has been re-set at 50%. This new department brings advantages in terms of cost effectiveness and more direct control over quality of work.
Operational Excellence Unit: in 2012, an Operational Excellence Unit was established within the directorate. This has evolved to include an in-house compliance team, a project management team and a performance management data team.
These changes, among others, have been both necessary and worthwhile but the net effect is a considerable increase in the Director of Regulation’s responsibilities. The result is the creation of two separate directorates; one to cover Registration and Operational Excellence, the other to include Fitness to Practise and Illegal Practice, each led by a director who will be members of the Executive Management Team. Gurvinder Soomal, who is currently Director of Operations and Registration, will become Director of Registration on 1 December 2014.
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