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Continuing Professional Development
Continuing Professional Development
Developing knowledgebuilding skills
Developing Knowledge - building skills
In today’s fast moving world, keeping pace with new ideas, skills and tools is essential for professional success. The financial services industry has seldom seen a time of more rapid change, with increasing regulation, industry consolidation and continuing economic challenges.
Actuaries need to prepare themselves and their clients to make the most of whatever it might bring.
Renowned for breadth of capabilities and technical expertise, actuaries have many facets of knowledge to maintain while progressing through their professional life. Added to this is an expanding range of opportunities, with new roles opening up in traditional areas of business and new sector opportunities beckoning for those with the skills to embrace them.
Whatever stage you are at in your actuarial career, our Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Scheme helps you to stay ahead of the game – enabling you to decide how best to update your knowledge to fulfill your professional obligation to act in the public interest.
Discover on the pages that follow, details of the CPD Categories and how requirements can be fulfilled.
As a first step you should identify whether you are required to undertake mandatory CPD and which category you are in by following the decision tree on the inside back cover.
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CPD activities and opportunities
You’ll find it easy to meet your CPD requirements. Sign up to one of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) upcoming events, attend one of your company’s training events or download and listen to an mp3 or podcast. The profession grows and learns with you, so we are actively pursuing new avenues of CPD provision.
Events
Any training or development activity which involves interaction with other individuals can count as an ‘event’. In addition to attending events run by the IFoA or industry you can gain CPD hours by participating in other online learning activities.
Each year we offer qualified actuaries a portfolio of events, including conferences, seminars, as well as other, less formal networking events. Planning which of the IFoA’s events to attend couldn’t be simpler with an events calendar where up-and-coming events are featured prominently on the IFoA’s website home page. The maximum number of CPD hours you can claim for each event is shown on the home page listing as well as on the event listing under the website ‘events’ tab.
Service to the IFoA
The IFoA provides many opportunities for members to get involved in committees and events. By volunteering your time to the IFoA, or by speaking at an event run by the IFoA, you can make a difference, gain valuable experience and earn CPD hours.
Private study
Members in Category 2 can include private study within their CPD programme. This includes study of any professional or technical journal, reading transcripts of seminars relevant to your role, or viewing podcasts or participating in web-based learning. Just ensure that you tell us what you learned from the activity.
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A few ideas for inspiration
Residential Conferences
The IFoA’s annual conferences cover all the actuarial practice areas: life, pensions, enterprise risk management, finance and investment, general insurance and health and care. The Momentum Conference is suitable for students and newly qualified actuaries across all the practice areas. These conferences can last two to four days, packed with workshops, plenary sessions and networking opportunities to enhance the members experience and can earn you up to 13.5 hours of CPD (GIRO Conference).
One-day/half-day events
All practice areas have annual events that take place to boost CPD for the largest practice areas of the IFoA. There can be up to 30 of these events a year, so plenty of opportunities to gain further CPD and have a chance to meet your peers.
Free or low cost CPD
Some events are recorded and these can be downloaded from our website.
• Open Fora events Open fora events are free of charge, evening events and can offer 1-2.5 CPD hours
• Sessional research programme Sessional research events offer new and updated research from within the IFoA. The programme will encompass not only opportunities to discuss academic papers, but also lectures, debates, workshops, round table discussions and seminars. These events are free of charge
• Networking events Networking events give members an opportunity to meet their colleagues and gain from 1-2.5 hours of CPD. For a small charge a networking drinks reception is included post event. Students can attend these events free of charge.
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Hours of events Hours of private study Total number of hours to be completed
15 0 15
14 1 15
13 2 15
12 3 15
11 4 15
10 5 15
9 7 16
8 9 17
7 11 18
6 13 19
5 15 20
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Categories
The CPD categories are listed below and help to guide members to honour the commitment to serve the public interest throughout their working life.
Category 1: all members who hold a Practising Certificate issued by the IFoA
Category 2: all other members in paid work (subject to some limited exemptions)
There is a lot of flexibility in how you fulfill your hours of CPD in terms of both methods of delivery and content, as long they meet specified criteria below.
Full details of specific requirements are available on the IFoA’s website as well as in the CPD Scheme which can be downloaded from the website. There is also a Frequently Asked Questions booklet available to download.
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Category 1 – What’s required?
As an outline guide, members in Category 1 must complete a minimum of 30 hours of verifiable CPD.
Of those 30 hours:
• at least 20 hours must be technically relevant to your area of work (and must include a minimum 10 hours attendance at external events);
• a minimum of two hours must be professional skills requirements as detailed in stage three of the professional skills training handbook; and a minimum of an additional four hours must relate to business skills and/or additional professional skills; and
• up to 15 hours may be claimed by you for services to the IFoA.
Category 2 – What’s required?
Members in Category 2 must complete a minimum of between 15-20 hours of CPD per year.
Additionally, members in Category 2 must complete such CPD as required from time to time in the professional skills training handbook. Requirements vary depending on the member’s date of qualfication/date of entry to the IFoA. Members must therefore ensure that they familiarise themselves with the details.
Category 2 members must:
• complete between 15 and 20 hours of verifiable CPD activities comprising a mixture of private study and attendance at events which are relevant to your role;
• complete a minimum of five hours attendance, two hours for professional skills, including attendance at one or more external events; and
• Additionally, members in Category 2 must complete such CPD as required from time to time in the professional skills training handbook. Requirements vary depending on the member’s date of qualfication/date of entry to the IFoA. Members must therefore ensure that they familiarise themselves with the details.
You are free to select the activities which you believe will provide the most appropriate mix of skills for your personal needs.
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Remember to keep documentary evidence of your attendance for two years.
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Recording your CPD hours
Recording your CPD is made easy with our online system, ensuring efficiency of data management for the IFoA.
Completing the online CPD form is made easy thanks to the drop down menu with an option for each item. It allows you to class CPD as follows:
External:
Event – IFoA
Event – in-company
Event – other
Event – service to IFoA
Event – training by professional body
Event – commercial provider
Internal:
Event – in-company
Event – other
Private study – other
Private study – reading
Private study – research
Online activities need to be recorded in conjunction with the guidance on our website entitled “use of online resource for CPD purposes.”
You will need to remember that any volunteering you do for the profession may not be CPD if it is not relevant to your role.
Monitoring
It is important for you to keep documentary evidence of your attendance for each verifiable event in case you are selected for monitoring. These records should be kept for two years. This could be an attendance certificate, copy of signed attendance lists, etc. Full details of requirements for activity types are available in the members’ area of the IFoA‘s website (www.actuaries.org.uk).
Each month the IFoA’s system will randomly select a number of members from both Category 1 and 2 for monitoring, so do remember to keep your documentation for proof and to fill out the online application correctly. You cannot alter your CPD to meet the requirements when picked for monitoring, so you need to ensure that the entries you have marked as verifiable are indeed that.
The Category 1 CPD year is counted as the year leading up to the Practising Certificate application date or such other date as explained in the new PC Scheme and Guidance.
The Category 2 CPD year runs from 1 July to 30 June.
The CPD Scheme aims to be fair to all members and will ensure a greater shared experience amongst fellow actuaries. If you do not hold a Practicing Certificate, please ensure that your category is correctly recorded on the IFoA’s website by 30 April each year. If for any reason your circumstances have changed since the previous year it must be reported to the IFoA by this date.
For those actuaries working overseas, who are still regulated by the IFoA, UK, we recognise some other actuarial bodies’ CPD schemes as being equivalent to our own. So if you work and follow the CPD Scheme in an overseas country please
let us know so that we can mark this appropriately. This will be monitored and from time to time you may be asked for evidence of compliance.
For further details on which schemes are recognized, please see Appendix B of the CPD Scheme available to download on the IFoA’s website (www.actuaries.org.uk).
The IFoA does take compliance with the CPD Scheme very seriously so you are advised to keep abreast of the CPD Scheme as it is updated/amended to ensure you keep up to date with the requirements.
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Compliance
Use the pullout decision tree to determine whether or not you are required to complete mandatory CPD.
If you work and follow the CPD Schemes in an overseas country, please let us know
so that we can mark this appropriately.
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Are you a Fellow or Associate of the IFoA?
Are you partially regulated by the IFoA?
Do you hold a practising certificate?
Have you been or will you be in paid work at any time during the course of the CPD year?
You are a Category 2 member and will be required to comply with the requirements of the CPD Scheme unless you qualify for an exemption. Remember to ensure that your status as a Category 2 member is reflected within your online record by 30 April and that your CPD record is up to date by the deadline of 31 July.
CPD decision tree
What do I have to do to meet my CPD obligations?
Outside the scope of the CPD Scheme.
If partially regulated you must comply with the CPD requirements of your main regulator.
You are a Category 1 member and must comply with the requirements set out of the CPD Scheme.
No CPD requirement. Please ensure that this is reflected in the declaration section of your online record.
Are you a Category 2 member?
Have you been or will you be engaged in more than 20 hours of paid work in the course of this CPD year?
Does your actuarial training, in the widest possible sense, contribute to your paid work?
Are there exceptional circumstances (such as serious ill health) which will prevent you from complying with the requirements of Category 2 of the CPD Scheme?
Have you been or will you be absent from work for more than six consecutive months in the course of this CPD year?
You are not eligible to receive an exemption from the requirements of Category 2 of the CPD Scheme. You must fulfil your obligations as set out in the Scheme.
I have carried out some paid work during this CPD year. Am I eligible for an exemption from compliance with the CPD Scheme?
You are not eligible to apply for an exemption under the CPD Scheme.
You are entitled to apply for an exemption from compliance with the CPD Scheme. Applications must be submitted by 30 April.
In the CPD Scheme you may undertake the reduced requirement of five hours of CPD for the CPD year. Those five hours may be obtained by attendance at events, private study or a mixture of the two. You must inform the Membership team in writing ([email protected]) before 30 April of the number of months worked.
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