A view from the Chair: consulting on our proposed Corporate Strategy 2026-2028

The public consultation on our proposed Corporate Strategy from 2026 to 2028 started last week. Titled ‘Trusted and Effective: A Strategy for Dental Regulation’.

Our vision is good oral health for all. We want to play our part, with others, in achieving this. Our mission is that, through trusted and effective regulation, we will support dental professionals to provide the right care for their patients.

Dentistry has changed since the last time we developed our strategy and our latest proposals take the changing context into account, including digital advancements in dental education and practice, the changing nature of dentistry, and a greater understanding of the impact of regulation on the mental health of registrants.

We have reviewed the changing context and taken on board feedback from dental professionals and stakeholders. We have heard about the need for the GDC to modernise and reform, and the fear that some registrants feel about the fitness to practice process. We have listened and Council is confident that addressing these priorities is at the centre of our proposals.

The strategy commits to reducing the negative unintended impacts of fitness to practise processes on mental health and wellbeing, while maintaining robust public protection.

We want to develop our approach to regulation and how we work with others, particularly dental professionals, our partners and patients. Our updated values will drive these changes: we want to be recognised as being respectful, transparent, inclusive and purposeful.

We want to modernise our registration and renewal processes through improved and more user-centred digital services, streamline fitness to practise investigations to be more proportionate and timelier, and continue to work collaboratively with the sector to address challenges around access to dental services, particularly NHS provision.

The strategy also introduces updated values that will drive change across the organisation: being respectful, transparent, inclusive and purposeful. I know that these are not terms that everyone would routinely use to characterise the regulator – but we aim to embody our values by 2030.

Expenditure plans

Council has given consideration to the funding required to continue to modernise and improve efficiency while ensuring we remain financially stable. Spreading out the delivery and therefore costs over a five-year period rather than three will help ensure financial stability, and affordability for fee-payers.

We chose to set our income at a level lower than our expenditure this year in order to reduce our reserves, which had built up to an unnecessarily high level. However, deficit budgeting is not sustainable and our current levels of funding will not be able to support what we currently do and will not allow for the investment needed to modernise our processes and systems. We also need to address unavoidable costs, such as increased employer National Insurance Contributions and projected corporation tax liabilities over the planning period. And, of course, we need to manage our finances responsibly during continued economic uncertainty.

The costs associated with delivering the strategy are included in the proposals. Although we are not consulting on the Annual Retention Fee (ARF), the consultation indicates the impact on fees for 2026-2028.

Current projections would mean that in 2026 our strategic plans would broadly return the fee to what it was in 2023, and only slightly above the ARF in 2020 – and so significantly lower than if it had increased in line with inflation since then.

We are proposing that any subsequent increases would be capped at the Consumer Price Index, with the GDC committing to deliver 7% efficiency savings over five years in addition to further savings from modernising registration processes and more effective use of estates. 

In the coming months, we will continue to challenge our financial assumptions and allocation of resources. Council will agree the corporate strategy in October this year which will, in turn, set the ARF for 2026.

Provide feedback on the proposals

I firmly believe that public consultation and being transparent in general is a good thing for dental professionals, patients and the public.

Over the coming weeks, we will meet dental professionals and stakeholders to share our proposals and encourage people to review and provide feedback. We are doing this through email, meetings, the website and events, including the Dental Leadership Network and the Scottish Dental Show in June.

I myself will be speaking at the Dental Leadership Network, for the last time in my role as Chair. I look forward to hearing directly from stakeholders then.

In the meantime, I would ask you to review the proposals on our website and provide feedback via the online form, by midnight on 21 August.