Your annual membership statement: it’s almost time
We will soon be writing out to all chartered members (CPFAs and FCPFAs) asking you to complete your annual membership statement (AMS).
The statement is important for a number of reasons: it tells us whether your details have changed, whether you are in practice, and that you have completed the requisite 20 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) for the year. If you think you may have few CPD hours to make up before the end of the year, here are some tips:
CIPFA's CPD scheme has been designed to be as flexible as possible. It takes into account all the sectors in which CIPFA members work. If you're not sure what topics or areas to focus on, CIPFA's key competencies for public finance professionals could help. As you read through the document, consider to what extent you need the various competencies, taking into account your job role, seniority and chosen career pathway. Then ask yourself: to what extent do these competencies already exist? This will, in turn, highlight potential learning and development gaps, thereby helping you plot the way forward.
Types of CPD
There are four types of CPD activity you can undertake that are geared towards development of skills in different areas:
- Technical activity focusing on all facets of accountancy, audit, finance and IT.
- Leadership activity focusing on managing change, empowering others, recruitment and induction and team working and building.
- Unstructured activity involving work shadowing, web-based research and reading journals and articles.
- Structured activity involving training courses, seminars and workshops, being coached or mentored and project work.
The requirements of CIPFA's CPD scheme
As a reminder, a CIPFA CPD year is any 12-month period, whether that's January to December, April to March or September to August. Lifelong learning is a continuous process throughout a professional's career. You can choose the annual cycle that suits you and your employer. The Institute recognises that some learning activities span one or more years, such as studying for an advanced or part-time degree. For each CPD year, members are required to maintain:
- a learning and development plan
- a learning and development record
- a portfolio of evidence.
Your learning and development record should contain details on the type of activity you undertake, the date you undertake it, the number of hours spent on the activity, a reflective statement from you on what you have gained from it, and lastly, your evidence of participation. You should make a plan for your CPD in advance, and this is often done as part of an appraisal process.
Your portfolio of evidence provides supporting material to demonstrate that you have undertaken the activities listed in your learning and development record. This can comprise but is not limited to:
- certificates of attendance
- minutes from meetings
- emails confirming involvement
- diary entries
- course evaluation sheets
- exam results
- training records
- appraisal reports
- copy presentations
- web-based learning logs or certificates.
CIPFA continuously strives to develop and enhance services to support members with their CPD. Members can download a learning and development record template. Support is also available from the CIPFA regions, which operate on a voluntary basis to arrange local activities that can help members with their CPD.
For further advice and information, please contact the membership team: members@cipfa.org.