Last month we announced that ARB will introduce a scheme for monitoring continuing professional development (CPD).
As regulator of the profession, ARB sets the education and training requirements for UK architects and sets and enforces the professional standards expected of them. The Building Safety Bill introduced into Parliament in July 2021 is intended to give ARB the power to monitor the training and development architects carry out throughout their careers. We will introduce a scheme for CPD that will encourage architects to maintain and develop their competence to practise.
We recognise that the majority of you already undertake CPD and so it’s important that our approach is proportionate, genuinely helpful to the profession, and tailored by you to meet your own individual development requirements.
We’ve already carried out research which has enabled our Board to develop four principles to underpin the scheme:
Principle 1: Improve the overall competence of the profession. The scheme will aim for an overall positive shift in the collective competence of the profession by promoting a culture of continuing professional development. It will not be about catching out individuals.
Principle 2: Tailored by architects to their own practice and needs. The scheme will encourage architects to reflect, plan, act and evaluate on their learning activities in a way that is relevant to their practice and development needs. The approach will not be ‘one-size-fits-all’.
Principle 3: Proportionate and deliverable. ARB’s research shows the majority (70%) of architects are already committed to carrying out dedicated CPD annually, so the scheme will aim to formalise and shape that learning. It should, as far as possible, avoid additional costs for architects.
Principle 4: Avoid duplication where possible. ARB intends to design a model that is suitable for all architects, and will be considering how best it can work alongside other schemes – both in terms of subject matter and logistical compatibility.
We want to know your thoughts on these principles and so we are inviting you to complete the survey so we can understand what kind of scheme would be most effective. Please do as it’s important to us that the scheme is developed in collaboration with the profession.
Information on our website sets out further detail about our policy principles. It is important to reiterate that our proposed approach is to help you capture and record CPD you are most likely already doing, whether it be through a professional institute or an education provider, and not impose additional burdens. It is about trying to formalise what most architects are already doing so that we can support and promote competence across the profession, not set some form of test applicable to the whole profession. You can find out more about our approach to CPD here.
