Sir, regular readers of your columns may recall some correspondence in 2000 (BDJ 2000; 188: 231, 416) relating to GDC policy and the potential recovery of costs in conduct cases. The then Chief Executive and Registrar made the point that the GDC was not empowered under the 1984 Dentists Act to recover its costs in conduct cases and that the Council was not seeking to recover such costs accepting that professional self-regulation confers a responsibility on all dentists to meet the costs of maintaining professional standards.

At the time I observed in your pages, inter alia, that the prospect of the GDC having a financial interest in the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings being dealt with by its Committees was an extremely unhappy one.

In case it may just have escaped some of your readers' attention, buried deeply within new legislation which has recently come into force, is ... a power enabling Committees of the GDC to make such Orders as to costs as they think fit (Schedule 3, paragraph 6 of the Dentists Act 1984 as amended)!

It seems that six years is a very long time in dental politics.