GDP’s Fight Continues Against The ‘Transparent’ GDC
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- Published: Thursday, 13 October 2022 08:19
- Written by Chris Tapper
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The fight to uncover the content of an email sent by the former Chair of the General Dental Council to Council members during the pandemic, has received a significant blow.
In June 2020, Leeds-based GDP Dr Dominic O’Hooley submitted a Freedom of Information request asking for information surrounding the regulator’s decision not to ‘revisit’ decisions it made regarding the Annual Retention Fee.
During the UK’s dental shutdown, there were many calls from dental professionals for the GDC to introduce a Payment by Instalment (PBI) scheme in order to help registrants, particularly dental care professionals, who had been severely affected financially by the pandemic.
There had also been calls on the GDC at the time, to temporarily reduce the ARF, but the regulator refused to listen to any of these pleas.
Controversially, as it refused temporary help for struggling dental registrants, the GDC decided to top up the income of its own furloughed regulatory and administrative staff.
News of the GDC’s decision even made the pages of the investigative news magazine Private Eye, which said in a story headlined ‘NO PAIN, NO GAIN,’ “Executive director Stefan Czerniawski suggested in a blog that, as a statutory body, the GDC’s hands were tied.”
“Yet other regulatory bodies, such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council, successfully operate instalment schemes for fees.”
“The GDC also said it couldn’t reduce fees because of the ‘Wider uncertainties about our income this year’ and ‘The need to be prudent in managing our finances.”
“But its latest accounts show comfortable reserves of more than £24m,” Private Eye said.
In May of 2021, the GDC finally approved and introduced a PBI scheme, despite there being no significant change in the GDC’s financial circumstances.
At the time of the Council’s decision on the ARF, the GDC Chair was Dr William Moyes.
In June 2020, Dr O’Hooley asked the GDC to give “Full details of the soundings taken from the Council as detailed by the Chair within point 9.1 of the minutes of the council meeting on 13th May 2020, relating to the reported unanimous view that the Annual Retention Fee should not be revisited.”
Dr O’Hooley also asked the GDC “Please can this information include the names of said council members, the full written communication both to them and received from them regarding this matter."
After the GDC’s refusal to provide information Dr O’Hooley requested, the GDP approached the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The Information Commissioner demanded that the GDC revealed the content of Dr Moyes’ email, but in the early summer of 2021, the GDC decided to appeal against the ICO’s demand and a ‘First-Tier Tribunal’ subsequently allowed the appeal.
But it has just been revealed that Dr O’Hooley’s application to appeal against the decision of the First-Tier Tribunal has been refused by a judge in the Administrative Appeals Chamber.
Mr E Mitchell, Judge of the Upper Tribunal refused Dr O’Hooley permission to appeal against the First-Tier Tribunal’s decision.
The Judge said he would only “Grant permission to appeal if an Appellant has a realistic prospect of establishing that the First-tier Tribunal’s decision involved a material error on a point of law.”
Embarrassingly for the Appeals Chamber, halfway through the transcript of Judge Mitchell’s decision, Dr O’Hooley began to be referred to as O’Donnell.
In one of his seven grounds for appeal, Dr O’Hooley said that the First-Tier Tribunal erred in finding as fact, that the ARF had not been revisited.”
But Judge Mitchell said “On its own, an error of fact does not rank as an error on a point of law and, furthermore, Mr O’Donnell’s (sic) request for information itself asserted that the ARF had not been revisited.”
“I am not persuaded that the tribunal’s finding that the ARF had not been revisited, if it was a finding, was perverse.” The Judge decided not to grant permission to appeal on the ground that Dr O’Hooley presented.
Dr O’Hooley also argued that the GDC’s appeal should have been dismissed because “Transparency dictated disclosure of the Chair’s email.”
But Judge Mitchell said “This is an argument on the merits of the appeal before the First-tier Tribunal rather than an argument that the tribunal’s decision involved an error on a point of law. Permission to appeal is refused on this ground.”
GDPUK understands Dr O’Hooley has applied for the decision regarding refusal of leave to appeal, to be reconsidered in an oral hearing.
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