The General Optical Council (Committee Constitution) (Amendment) Rules Order of Council 2008

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order approves Rules of the General Optical Council (“GOC”) that revise the constitutional arrangements of a number of its statutory committees by way of making amendments to the General Optical Council (Committee Constitution) Rules 2005 (“the 2005 Rules”).

Rule 3 amends the 2005 Rules by inserting new definitions that are relevant to the new provisions and makes a consequential amendment. Rule 4 inserts a new Part 1A into the 2005 Rules, which introduces new disqualification criteria which bar certain categories of people from being appointed to any of the GOC’s statutory committees, and also includes the criteria for suspending committee members and removing them from office.

Rules 5 to 16 make a number of changes to the composition of the GOC’s various statutory committees. The GOC is given generally greater flexibility over determining the membership of its committees, within specified parameters, and in particular, the requirements that the members of some of the statutory committees must be drawn from within the GOC itself are removed. Alongside the changes to the composition of committees, there are also changes to their quora. As regards hearings into allegations against registrants, provision is made which reduces the size of the Fitness to Practice Committee at any hearings that take place before the substantive hearings. There are also new provisions for dealing with the composition of the Registration Appeals Committee and the Fitness to Practise Committee in cases where powers elsewhere to issue directions to join cases are being or have been exercised.

Rule 29 of the 2005 Rules, which relates to the selection of some committee members is changed. There is no longer an absolute bar on members of the Hearings Panel being involved at more than one stage of a case, but they cannot sit on both the Investigation Committee and the Fitness to Practise Committee in the same case and cannot sit both in relation to an interim order hearing and at any subsequent procedural or substantive hearing in the same case. The requirement that Committee members who cease to be Council members must also cease to be Committee members is removed (rule 17) and there is also an updating of the arrangements for filling casual vacancies to take account of the changes elsewhere (rule 18). The power to select the chairs of the statutory committees, apart from the Fitness to Practise Committee and the Registration Appeals Committee (which select their own chairs before each hearing), now resides with the GOC itself (rule 19). There are also transitional arrangements to ensure that part heard cases when the new arrangements come into force can continue to be heard by the composition of the Committee before the changes made by the Rules approved by this Order (rule 20).