Consultation on draft guidance for a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme

Overview

ARB has been given new powers in the Building Safety Act 2022 to monitor the training and development architects carry out throughout their careers. When ARB’s new CPD scheme is introduced, it will be mandatory. All architects on the UK Register will have to confirm they have undertaken CPD on an annual basis, as a condition of their ongoing registration.

This consultation invites views on the detail of ARB’s scheme before it is finalised and introduced. Draft guidance on the scheme has been published, so that architects can review the requirements and understand what will be asked of them. By completing the consultation survey, architects and anyone interested in the scheme can share their views before ARB finalises and introduces it.

ARB’s role in CPD

Architects play an important role in creating a built environment that inspires people, in which we can all be safe and live well, and that helps to tackle the fundamental challenges our planet faces.

The Architects Registration Board (ARB) is an independent professional regulator, established by Parliament as a statutory body, through the Architects Act 1997. We are accountable to government.

The law gives us a number of core functions:

• To ensure only those who are suitably competent are allowed to practise as architects. We do this by approving the qualifications required to join the UK Register of Architects.
   
• We maintain a publicly available Register of Architects so anyone using the services of an architect can be confident that they are suitably qualified and are fit to practise.
   
• We set the standards of conduct and practice the profession must meet and take action when any architect falls below the required standards of conduct or competence.
   
• We protect the legally restricted title ‘architect’.

We want to be able to demonstrate architects’ commitment to a culture of continued learning throughout their professional lives, which will uphold public confidence in the competence of the profession.

This CPD scheme connects an architect’s commitment to maintaining competence to their continued right to registration. Therefore, undertaking yearly CPD and confirming it has been undertaken will be a condition of registration for all architects and compulsory.

After carrying out our own research and engaging with the profession, we have developed new draft guidance on the CPD architects will be expected to carry out to remain on the Register. To view the guidance please click here. 

For more information, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Our proposals are as follows:

• Architects will need to carry out CPD every year and confirm they have undertaken it when they pay their retention fee in order to remain registered.
   
• There is no minimum number of activities or hours that an architect must complete. Architects can do the CPD that is most relevant to their practice, in a way that works best for them.
   
• Architects may have to do CPD on core topics mandated by ARB. If ARB does choose to mandate a topic, this will be communicated to architects in advance and with guidelines to assist them.
   
• CPD can be recorded on the ARB platform, or another compatible platform identified in ARB’s guidance. Architects will need to record the CPD activities they carry out and the outcomes from them. They will also need to write a reflective statement on the development they have carried out over the last 12 months, and their future development requirements.
  
  Check ARB’s guidance before using a different platform.
   
• ARB will annually review a selection of architects’ CPD records. If you are selected to be reviewed, ARB will write to you asking for documentation about your CPD.

The consultation will comply with ARB’s Code of Practice for consultations.

Why your views matter

We are now asking for views on the draft guidance before it is finalised and comes into force.

This consultation will be open for three months and will close on Tuesday 3rd January 2023. ARB will analyse all responses and consider changes to the CPD scheme guidance based on the responses. Views raised will be used to consider whether the proposed CPD scheme will help architects demonstrate architects’ commitment to a culture of continued learning throughout their professional lives and provide public confidence in the competence of the profession.

The ARB Board will make a decision about whether to approve the guidance and when to introduce it. We expect to run a pilot for the scheme in 2023 and launch the scheme in full 2024. Extensive communication activities will take place to inform all architects on the UK Register in advance of the scheme’s implementation.