|
Dear Dean,
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is defined as the systematic maintenance, enhancement and continuous improvement of the knowledge, skills and ability, often termed 'competence', that one needs to work as a professionally qualified bookkeeper. There are two strands to CPD:
- Update CPD, which ensures professional competence and prevents technical obsolescence within the member's field of work.
- Developmental CPD, which provides new knowledge, broadens skills and opens up career opportunities.
It is the responsibility of the individual member to develop and maintain the competence demanded by their role and the needs of those to whom they provide a service.
It is recommended that a member plans their annual CPD in advance; setting goals and objectives to achieve knowledge in the areas they feel need revision.
All members at associate level or above are required to undertake a program of annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Each member is responsible for deciding what areas of development they need to concentrate on and most choose a broad coverage.
There are two types of CPD, structured and unstructured. Structured is any training that is done where your presence and attainment of knowledge can be proven. Examples will be level 4 ICB exams, Annual Bookkeepers Summit, ICB branch meetings (that cover specific topics), training courses with a certificate of attendance etc. Unstructured is any other learning you do, such as reading articles or researching information on HMRC.
CPD should be recorded on your CPD record. The CPD po9rtal can be used to set goals of what you want to acheive throughout the year. The you can add activities as you work towards your goal and link these to the goal. For example if you are working towards your Payroll qualification. Your goal would be to achieve PM.Dip status. you may like to add each chapter of the course as an activity against that goal.
If you do not want to set goals then just add each bit of CPD as a new activity.
ICB recommends that members complete a minimum of 30 points of CPD per year of which at least 15 should be structured and a maximum of 15 should be unstructured. Each hour of structured CPD equates to one CPD point, whilst an hour of unstructured CPD equates to half a CPD point. Your CPD year runs in line with your membership year
I hope this helps answer your questions but do let me know if you have any further queries.
|
