ICAEW’s CPD Regulations provide clarity about how many hours of CPD members should be completing.

The regulations state that work or roles with a high degree of public interest require the highest number of CPD hours. This includes ICAEW members who work in public sector organisations, or with them.

Alison Ring, ICAEW’s Director for Public Sector and Taxation, highlights the importance of members working in the public sector understanding the CPD requirements and their own obligations.

“Members working in or with the public sector play a key role in improving public financial management, governance, and accountability,” she says. “It is vital that these members maintain their professional knowledge and skills to support value for money in public spending, as well as to strengthen trust in the profession.”

CPD obligations

The regulations establish six categories of members, each with a different minimum level of total CPD hours and verifiable CPD hours, as shown in the table below.  

When understanding your CPD obligations, the first question to consider is whether you are considered as working within practice.

For the purposes of the CPD Regulations, members auditing and advising public sector bodies, whether working in national audit agencies or member firms, are considered to be “practice members”.

All others, including audit committee members and those working in finance or management roles, are considered to be “not in practice”.

Which category are you?

As the regulations take a risk-based approach, individuals working in or auditing central government departments, devolved administrations and larger local bodies (where the audit is classified as a Major Local Audit) will tend to be in a higher CPD category than those working in or with other public sector bodies.

Nevertheless, there is significant public interest in effective financial management and reporting of all public bodies as they deliver essential services, have a major role in national priorities, such as the transition to net zero, and spend taxpayers’ money. As a result, all members working as accounting officers of central government bodies (as defined in Managing Public Money) or statutory officers of local authorities are placed in not-in-practice category 1 and are required to complete 40 hours of CPD,15 of which must be verifiable.

Members who spend more than 30% of their professional time auditing public sector bodies fall into practice categories 1 or 2. This categorisation recognises the key role of public sector audit in providing assurance to the public that taxpayers’ money is accounted for correctly and spent as intended.

Those auditing the bodies with the highest levels of public interest are in practice category 1. These include:

• Key Audit Partners for Major Local Audits
• Engagement Partners (as defined under ISA 220) on the audits of central government departments and devolved administrations, and
• those who spend more than 30% of their professional time on Major Local Audits and the audits of central government departments and devolved administrations. 

Performance and value for money audits

The CPD requirements also acknowledge the wider scope of public sector audit compared to corporate audit.

Those who spend 30% or more of their time on the performance or value for money audit of public sector bodies are in practice category 2, which requires 30 hours of CPD to be completed each year, with 20 of those hours verifiable. This reflects that much of the performance and value for money work done by the national audit agencies is cross-cutting and covers multiple public bodies.

Kate Mathers, the National Audit Office’s Executive Director responsible for Financial Audit and previous Chair of ICAEW’s Education and Training Board, says: “Managing the public finances or providing assurance to Parliament and to the public on how taxpayers’ money has been accounted for and spent, and whether that spend has delivered value for money, are big responsibilities.

“The CPD requirements reflect the scale of those responsibilities. It is vital that those of us who are members working in the public sector keep at the top of our game by continuously improving our professional skills and knowledge.”