The GMC’s 2012 business plan laid out the regulator’s plans for making continued efficiency savings from 2012 onwards.

Achieving further efficiencies in 2013 and 2014 would be ‘key to freezing or further reducing the fees doctors pay to the GMC in the medium term’, the business plan said.

Last year the GMC cut its fees for the first time in 40 years, after it saved £8m by making its processes more efficient.

Speaking at the time GMC chief executive Niall Dickson said the reduction in fees was a direct result of the efficiencies made during the year.

He said: ‘As a result of further efficiencies achieved across the organisation, we were able this year to pass on savings to all doctors.’

The GMC plans to make efficiency savings of between 3% and 5% in 2012.

The savings could be made through modernising adjudication procedures and using ‘lean principles’ in the GMC’s major work programmes, the business plan said.  

To make further efficiency savings, as of January 2013 the GMC council will be smaller and more ‘board-like’.

The plan said: ‘We will also ensure the good governance of the organisation by putting the necessary arrangements in place to support the appointment of the reconstituted Council from the start of 2013’.

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