News

Best Practice Guidance on Continuing Professional Development for the Thinking Professional

5th October 2006

As part of its remit within ConstructionSkills and in conjunction with the involvement of its Member Institutions, CIC has completed a project to help advance the importance of Continuing Professional Development across the sector.

The project is primarily centered on the empowering of individuals to adopt a more meaningful approach to CPD and helping to provide the guidance to facilitate this.
As a result of industry surveys and consultation with professional bodies, the project identified a combination of factors that impinge on CPD practice including: changing needs in this fast-moving industry; recognition of the need to address skills shortages and gaps identified by sector employers; recognition by professional bodies of the difficulties involved in implementing CPD; capacity problems experienced by employers in developing staff; and the perceptions of many professional practitioners about what constitutes ‘CPD’ and that CPD is an ‘obligation’ and a ‘chore’. Clearly, a key point about CPD is whether people actually do it and whether it is effective and valued.
The main outcome of the project was the development of ‘best practice guidance’. This particularly focuses on the advantages of adopting CPD which has structure, is target driven and benchmarked in order to demonstrate acquired knowledge and competence, and which can also be recorded.

This guidance is neither intended to be prescriptive to Institutions, employers and practitioners, nor to supplant requirements and guidance set out by Institutions themselves. Instead, it is about working with Institutions, employers and practitioners, to address common industry skills issues through better use of
CPD. It is also about empowering individuals to adopt a more meaningful approach to CPD, to develop themselves and their careers and about helping to provide the guidance to facilitate this. Many of the features in the guidance have already, or are now, being introduced by a number of Professional Institutions.

The guidance, together with particular advice for employers and individual practitioners, can be found at: www.cic.org.uk/cpd />
Further information on the project can be obtained from David Cracknell and Mussa Awaleh at CIC – please telephone 020 7399 7400 or email lifelonglearning@cic.org.uk