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Finance and strategic change dominated last week's meeting of the General Optical Council. A host of strategic initiatives and legislative changes were agreed and details of massive increases in expenditure were explained.

The Council approved the strategic plan for 2010-15, which requires big changes to satisfy three priorities: modernisation, development of regulation and promotion of wider understanding of the GOC's work.

A huge range of initiatives for change include revalidation, the development of CET, an electronic fitness to practise case management system, new codes of conduct and raising public awareness. To enable this change groups need to be set up, IT systems commissioned and legal steps taken.

Council members voiced concern that where fitness to practise cases were handed over to a central regulator, costs, in this case £400,000 a year, would be out of the Council's control. It was also suggested that in supervision orders the 'miscreant' should be made to pay and not rank and file registrants.

The draft budget for 20101/11 showed an increase in legal fees of 24 per cent on top of the 56 per cent rise seen in the previous year, bringing the total to £1.2m from £617,473 in the year ending 2009. Over the same period IT services rose from £38,327 to £222,215 and Council members and meeting costs increased from £155,544 to £421,926. Total expenditure for 2011 would be £5.75m up 17.7 per cent on the previous year.

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