# The General Optical Council (Continuing Education and Training Rules) (Amendment) Order of Council 2012, Note: Explanatory note


(This note is not part of the Order)
This Order approves Rules made by the General Optical Council (“the Council”), which amend the General Optical Council (Continuing Education and Training) Rules Order of Council 2005 (“the Principal Rules”).
Paragraph (2) of rule 2 amends the interpretations provisions of the Principle Rules to reflect the amendments made by this Order.
Paragraph (3) substitutes rule 10 of the Principle Rules, introducing the concept of interactive events and peer review events and requiring the administrator of the scheme to specify where approved events relate to these concepts. It also requires the administrator to specify the relevant competencies established by the Council under section 12(1) which relate to an approved event.
Paragraphs (6) and (7) of rule 2 amends and replaces, respectively, rules 12 (requirement to obtain general CET points) and 13 (requirement to obtain specialist CET points) of the Principle Rules in order to clarify that any period of time that a registrant was on the register prior to restoration is to be disregarded for the purposes of the calculation of points. There is also an additional provision which requires that the approved events undertaken for the purposes of obtaining the CET points required under rules 12 and 13 must comply with the CET requirements under new rules 13A, 13B and 13C of the Principle Rules (requirement to obtain competencies and undertake interactive and peer review events).
Paragraph (9) of rule 2 replaces rule 15 (calculation of CET points) of the Principle Rules, which enables registered dispensing opticians who have an entry for a contact lens specialty against their name in the register, may count their specialist CET points towards their general CET points (and so may be counted twice) upto a maximum of 18 points. It also makes provision for any CET points obtained for the purposes of making up any shortfall in CET points to be counted towards the CET points required for restoration under rules 25 and 26 (and so may be counted twice).
Paragraph (11) of rule 2 introduces a new concept of ‘shortfall in CET requirements’ which can either be a shortfall in CET points or non-compliance with the requirements under paragraphs 13A, 13B or 13C.
Paragraph (14) of rule 2 is a new provision which requires the administrator to notify the registrant two months before the end of the relevant period that, if no further events are to be undertaken by the end of the relevant period, the registrant will have a shortfall in CET requirements and may be removed from the register at the end of that period.
Paragraph (16) of rule 2 amends the time limits where there is a dispute under rule 22 regarding the registrants compliance with the CET requirements.
Paragraphs (20) and (21) of rule 2 amend the restoration provisions of the Principle Rules. These now provide that in addition to the number of points required on an application for restoration, it will also be necessary to comply with the requirements of rules 13A, 13B and 13C of the Principle Rules as amended by this Order. The effect being that the approved events undertaken for the purposes of restoration will need to comply with the competency requirements under 13A, the requirement to attend interactive events under rule 13B and the requirement to attend a peer review event under rule 13C.
Rule 3 makes savings provisions to enable the Principle Rules to continue as they would have applied on the 31st December 2012 for the purposes of administering the rules in respect of the relevant period ending on 31st December 2012. However, this will not apply in respect of any applications for restoration made on or after 1st January 2014 where the person seeking restoration was removed from the register as a result of non-compliance with the CET points required under the relevant period ending on 31st December 2012.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/2882/note (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/general-optical-council-continuing-education-and-training-rules-amendment-order-of-council-2012/note
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.