CPD and competence compliance
Solicitors Continuing Competence
The SRA Continuing Competence regime requires you to reflect on the quality of your practice and identify any learning and development needs. You can then address these needs to make sure your knowledge and skills are up to date and that you are competent to practice.
The SRA continuing competence toolkit provides useful information and resources to help you adopt this new approach to continuing competence. It is also helpful for firms or organisations that employ solicitors.
The SRA Continuing Competence regime requires you, in summary, to:
- Reflect on the quality of your practice to identify your learning and development needs.
- Plan and address your learning and development needs.
- Record and evaluate your learning activity.
- Make an annual declaration to confirm you have completed the above.
With our CPD 2018 competence service you can create and maintain a CPD Plan, undertake our courses and keep compliant records.
Barristers CPD
The BSB CPD regime:
- emphasises your individual responsibility for identifying your own training and development needs;
- removes the requirement that you need to carry out a certain number of CPD hours; and
- emphasises your individual responsibility for achieving specific learning outcomes, rather than simply measuring the effort involved.
Guidance is published here by the BSB.
The Rules are contained in the BSB Handbook, Part 4, at rules rQ130 – rQ138 and guidance gQ1-gQ5.
The definition of CPD is:
Work undertaken over and above your normal commitments as a barrister. CPD is undertaken with a view to developing your skills, knowledge and professional standards in areas relevant to your present or proposed area of practice. This is in order to keep yourself up to date and maintain the highest standards of professional practice.
The four required stages you need to complete are:
- Planning. Complete a plan of the CPD that you are going to undertake: set learning objectives which should provide specific aims and outcomes.
- Recording and evidence. Complete CPD activities and keep a record of them.
- Reflecting on your CPD activities. Which learning objectives you completed, which you did not complete and why, which you changed.
- Declaring completion. Submit a formal declaration that you have completed your CPD requirements.
With our CPD 2018 competence service you can create and maintain a CPD Plan, undertake our courses and keep compliant records.