Questioned on Legal Costs, GDC Carefully Limits Answers
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- Published: Friday, 20 October 2023 09:15
- Written by Peter Ingle
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Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome is credited with introducing the idea of a gradual process of unveiling, in this case in a dance. The play has even been proposed as the origin of striptease.
Like Salome, the GDC cannot resist lingering over the process of its own unmasking, whether it is over registrant suicides during FTP, or the costs of it’s troubled Fitness to Practice (FTP) system.
The Williams case, in particular, has not shown the GDC’s FTP processes in a good light. It was bought against a young dentist, who was erased. A key part of the case involved evidence from one of the GDC’s go-to expert witnesses, whose lack of knowledge and quality of evidence has been the subject of concern in this, and other, cases.
The GDC were forced to restore the dentist following her successful appeal through the courts. Troubled by this verdict, the GDC sought to appeal the decision. Their appeal was dismissed by Lord Justice Coulson and his colleagues. His summary was damming, including the sentence: “In my view, on the unchallenged evidence before the PCC, the findings of dishonesty should never have been made.”
The GDC can afford to take on unlikely legal cases, supported by their generous fighting fund provided by registrants. Those same registrants might think that they were entitled to know just how much the GDC had spent on this questionable action. BDA Chair, Eddie Crouch was moved to put in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request on the subject.
There were six components to his request. He asked (1)The GDC’s legal costs for the original appeal heard by Judge Ritchie in May 2022, (2) The amount awarded by the judge after the successful appeal of Williams’ erasure, and (3) The costs for the GDC’s second appeal to Judge Ritchie in May 2023. Eddie Crouch also asked, (4) If the costs for that second appeal were shared with NHS England, (5) What reassurance was given by the GDC on the costs incurred by Lucy Williams for the May 2023 hearing, and (6) What costs were paid to her, if any, for her legal representation at that hearing.
The GDC response came at the upper limit of the time the Freedom of Information Act sets out for responses.
The GDC began by saying that they did not hold some of the requested information. Furthermore some information that they did hold was being withheld on the basis that it was personal data, which if shared would breach the Data Protection Act.
In the context of legal costs (1) the GDC chose to define this narrowly, only giving the fees paid to counsel representing the GDC in that matter, which came to £12,950 plus VAT. This figure excludes all GDC staff costs including their work facilities and remuneration packages, as well as disbursements such as court fees.
The response to (2) was “no information held.” However the GDC did add that: “An agreement was reached, and the GDC paid £27,000 towards Ms Williams’ legal representation.”
For (3) counsel’s fees came to 10,375 plus VAT, with the same provisos as made in their response to (1)
To quote the GDC response to (4) in its entirety: “4. No information held. However, outside of the scope of your request we can confirm that costs were not shared with the NHS.”
The reply to (5) fell back on data protection: “The GDC agreed to indemnify Ms Williams in respect of reasonable and necessary costs of the appeal, communications regarding these reassurances are exempt from disclosure by virtue of Section 40(2) – Personal data, and Section 42(1) – Legal Professional Privilege.”
(6) Was answered with: “Following the Court of Appeal’s decision, the GDC paid £18,700 plus VAT towards Ms Williams’ legal costs. However, outside the scope of this request, we can confirm the GDC was ordered to pay Ms Williams’ costs on the standard basis, such costs to be assessed by the court if an agreement had not been reached.”
This amounts to over £78,000 of costs declared. To this must be added any costs that the GDC withheld in their answer to (5), and of course the GDC’s own internal costs in organising and running their campaign of legal action.
Even then this would exclude the costs of the original GDC FTP case which led to Lucy William’s unjustified erasure. A clue to this sum can be found in GDPUK’s report of another case where there were charges of dishonesty. GDPUK.com - GDC Spent £271,865 on ’no case to answer’ Fitness to Practise Hearing By an uncanny coincidence, this featured at least one familiar expert witness, and was dismissed by the FTP panel as “no case to answer”. The costs admitted by the GDC came to over £270,000.
GDPUK will be covering a separate FOI response from the GDC which demonstrates their lack of openness regarding FTP costs and, arguably, a somewhat relaxed approach to book keeping.
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