This is Echelon Publishing’s second survey (Spring 2006) about the provision of CPD within institutions – the first having been carried out in Spring 2004.

The results are based on approximately 50 institutions with the information gained via a combination of questionnaire responses and desk research.

Where applicable we compare these results with those of our 2004 survey.

With the general recognition that professionals need to keep their skills updated for their own benefit and for the good of the reputation of their profession, there is considerable pressure for professionals to undertake CPD. Given this, however, only 50% of those institutions in this survey actually make CPD a mandatory requirement for their members. This is approximately the same situation as in our 2004 survey. It is fair to say, however, that of those institutions that do not make it mandatory most place a firm obligation on their members to undertake CPD.

Where CPD is not currently mandatory, there does seem to be a trend to make it so with a slight majority of those institutions where it is not currently mandatory expecting it to become so in the next five years. This continues the trend from the 2004 survey. There seems to be a sense amongst those institutions that do not intend to make CPD mandatory that this goes against the ethos of their profession. Members of such institutions are seen as ‘responsible adults’ capable of recognising the importance of CPD for themselves without the need to force them into such activity.

Although CPD may not be a mandatory requirement in all institutions, almost all those in this survey considered that the requirements placed on their members to fulfil their CPD obligations would grow. This confirms the trend identified in 2004 that CPD is going to play an increasingly important role in the life of the professional.

Nearly all institutions have some means of measuring the amount of CPD activity of their members. The main ways in which this is done is shown in the graph below. Compared to 2004 there seems to be less emphasis on methods that concentrate on the number of hours completed or points acquired. The reason for this appears to be a shift away from measuring CPD inputs towards an emphasis on outcomes. This tends to indicate a move away from a ‘tick box’ mentality towards a more sophisticated approach fitting in, perhaps, with the emphasis on responsible and autonomous professionals indicated earlier.

Where hours of CPD activity undertaken are measured, about two-thirds of such institutions require between 20 and 40 hours of such activity per year with about one-third requiring more than that.

As would be expected, those institutions that have in place a system for measuring CPD activity also monitor compliance with their CPD requirements. This is often done through a system of sampling a percentage of the CPD records of the membership each year.

The results of this question exactly, and appropriately, match the result for the question asking if CPD is mandatory. If it is mandatory, there are sanctions for non-compliance.

Of those that responded to the survey two-thirds reported that an individual’s membership could ultimately be suspended or withdrawn if CPD requirements were persistently not complied with.

All institutions regard a broad range of activities as being legitimate for CPD purposes. As would be expected almost all regard learning to enhance professional and technical skills as a part of CPD. However at least 75% of those surveyed also saw developing management, business and personal skills as important.

In a similar way institutions accept a very broad range of development activities as being legitimate for CPD. About 60% of respondents accepted all of the CPD methods listed in the survey as legitimate. Although some, especially those employing a points system, assign different weightings to these activities.

When considering what they considered to be the greatest benefit for their members of undertaking CPD activity, institutions clearly saw career advancement and promotion as the greatest benefit, with over 50% also seeing improved performance in the current job as an important benefit. Improved personal effectiveness and, especially, improved ability to cope with change were seen as of less importance.

Almost all institutions provide some form of support to their members but some go much further than others.

Almost 90% of those surveyed offered members a means of recording their CPD activity. This was the most universal means of support. However, when asked if this included an on-line system for keeping CPD records this percentage fell dramatically and does not show any significant change from the results from the 2004 survey.

However, when asked if such a system would be of value to members, nearly all those who did not currently have such a system thought it would be valuable. Again this result is similar to 2004. There has, therefore, been little progress in this regard since the last survey.

Most institutions (over 85%) do offer access to at least some CPD resources via the Web. This marks quite an increase over the proportion in 2004 when the figure was near two-thirds. Perhaps, therefore, this is where institutions have been concentrating their efforts.

However, for the considerable majority it is access to static material, i.e. repositories of articles, journals and reports rather than more dynamic and interactive material that is provided.

Although most institutions provide some means of recording CPD activity relatively few provide a means by which their members can assess what there CPD needs are so that they could plan their CPD activity to meet those needs. This matches up with the low provision of on-line systems for recording CPD activity.

Almost 75% of responding institutions do accredit learning for their students.

However, only about one-third of these institutions actually publish this material themselves.

Of those that do publish their own material 60% of those responding to the survey used some form of content management system as part of the publishing process, helping them to speed up the publishing process and quickly adapt material to be published in different media and to assist with updating.