Who may inspect a professional register

Boards write letters that use the word “confidential” as a blanket. Under the blanket there are usually three stacks.

The first stack is the public extract: name, registration number, class, and the conditions that were imposed in public. Anyone who knows how to ask for that extract can usually obtain it. That is the roll as a public book.

The second stack is the complaint or investigation file. Many boards seal it from the world, and sometimes from the practitioner, while a process runs. Sealed does not mean the public extract has been withdrawn. Mixing those two facts is how a renewal gets written as a speech about a complaint the board will not hear in that form.

The third stack is the application file the practitioner lodged. Access to that file is often limited to the person named and a legal representative. A spouse, a colleague, or an employer who “just wants to see the paperwork” is not a legal representative. We will not pretend they are.

If you are the person named, ask for the extract and, separately, for a statement of what remains sealed. If you are instructing us, send the board’s own words about inspection. We read those words before we take a fee, because a reading that ends at a refusal stamp is not an assessment, it is a wasted week.