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Published: Saturday, 17 December 2011 20:13

Written by News Editor

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The CHRE is responsible for regulating the professional regulators, including the GDC. It issues a report to Parliament (and the devolved legislations annually in July. Last year it was critical of the GDC’s performance and, although it sees some progress being made, it is still critical of the pace of change.
This year’s report says:
’The GDC is going through a period of transition. There have been major changes to key personnel during 2010 – a new chief executive (who came into post in October) and a completely new executive management team (three of whom came into post in early 2011). It is undergoing a modernisation programme which began at the end of 2010 to enable it to meet the demands of regulating seven professional groups and a higher annual fitness to practise caseload than pre-2009. We note that this programme will address each of the GDC’s regulatory functions. We are particularly concerned with the scale of improvements that are required around the GDC’s fitness to practise work. 10.4 The GDC says that it is fully aware of the improvements that it needs to make.‘We agree with the GDC that the next 12 months is critical to the improvement of its overall performance. We understand that it can take time for the impact of wide-reaching and significant changes to become evident in an organisation’s day-to-day activities. This is particularly true in an area of work as complex as fitness to practise.
‘However, as the difficulties that the GDC is experiencing have implications for its ability to maintain the confidence of the professions and the public in its role as an effective regulator, we will want to see that progress is being made as quickly as possible. We will continue to work with the GDC to assist it in making the required improvements prior to the next performance review. 10.5 The management of an efficient and effective organisational complaints process is important to maintaining public confidence in a regulator.
‘Furthermore, when an organisation is struggling with its performance, complaints are often a useful indicator of areas where improvements need to be made and can assist in identifying a benchmark against which improvements can be measured. We have raised our concerns with the GDC about its organisational complaints process, particularly in relation to the timeliness and quality of responses to complaints.
’We are satisfied that the GDC is aware that it needs to improve its management of organisational complaints, particularly those involving concerns about the fitness to practise process.

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