2024 archived consultation: GOC strategy 2025-30
This consultation was previously hosted on our consultation hub. We have moved it here as part of archiving.
We asked
Our current strategy, ‘Fit for the future’ covers the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2025. We sought stakeholder views on a new strategy, for the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030.
We consulted on the draft strategy so that we could hear views on our proposals and make sure that we fully understood the context in which we were setting the strategy.
You said
We received 25 written consultation responses from a range of stakeholders including our registrants, charities and optical professional and representative organisations. We also carried out three stakeholder engagement events aimed at registrants, professional bodies and charities.
Key findings from the consultation were:
- broad support for our vision, mission and strategic objectives, including the strong emphasis on issues of equity;
- support for our focus on putting patients and the public at the heart of what we do;
- a call for more detail on our project plans, financing the strategy and how we will measure success; and
- the importance of collaboration with a range of partners in the sector to deliver the strategy.
We did
We reflected on all the feedback we received and have taken the following actions:
- confirming the vision, mission and strategic objectives as unchanged;
- adding new sections to the strategy on financing and performance reporting. Annual business plans will contain detail on projects; and
- strengthened text in the strategy to recognise GOC’s role as one part of a wider system and underlining our commitment to collaborating with a range of partners to deliver the strategy.
For more information, please find:
- GOC response to our consultation on our corporate strategy for 2025-2030 (PDF)
- Consultation responses on draft General Optical Council strategy for 2025-2030 (PDF)
The new strategy is available on our website, coming into effect on 1 April 2025.
Original consultation
Our current strategy “Fit for the future” covers the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2025. We are now developing a new strategy for the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030.
The General Optical Council (GOC) is the regulator for the optical professions in the UK. We currently register around 33,000 optometrists, dispensing opticians, student optometrists, student dispensing opticians and optical businesses. The groups on our register are called registrants.
Why we’re doing this now
Our current strategy ‘Fit for the future’ covers the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2025. We consulted on our last strategy before finalising it and are grateful for all the comments we received. We are consulting on our new strategy now, so that stakeholders can shape the plan as it develops and so that we can finalise the plan in good time for the new strategic period, starting April 2025.
What will happen next?
The public consultation was open for 12 weeks. Now that the consultation has closed, we will analyse all the comments we have received and identify whether we need to make changes to our strategy. We will ask our Council to approve the final strategy, along with a document summarising the responses we received to the consultation and the changes we are making in response.
We expect to publish our new strategy in early 2025, accompanied by an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy.
You can find below both a PDF of the consultation document and an equality impact assessment, in the English and Welsh languages.
Final strategy consultation document (PDF)
Final strategy consultation document - Welsh (PDF)