Members who volunteer as charity trustees now have specific Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements to complete each year. Find out what your requirements are and the resources ICAEW has created to help you meet them.
Your CPD requirements
ICAEW members who volunteer as charity trustees are now within the scope of ICAEW’s CPD Regulations. If the only work you carry out within a CPD year (1 November - 31 October) is volunteering as a charity trustee, you are required to complete:
- an hour of verifiable ethics training, and
- verifiable charity-specific training.
If you are an ICAEW member who holds other paid role(s), but also volunteers as a charity trustee, you are strongly encouraged to undertake some charity-related CPD as necessary for your role.
CPD course for charity trustees
Included as part of your membership, ICAEW has designed a CPD course for charity trustees to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to be an effective charity trustee.
ICAEW will be providing an annual update to this online training, so you can keep up to date with developments that impact your responsibilities as a charity trustee.
The course will help you meet the CPD Regulations and, for those charity trustees with wider CPD requirements, will count towards your minimum number of verifiable CPD hours.
You can choose to carry out alternative training to meet the new charity-specific training requirement. This must be verifiable and must cover the following learning outcomes:
- legal responsibilities of the charity trustee role; and
- current and upcoming developments that might impact your role as a charity trustee.
Read the overview of ICAEW's CPD course for charity trustees for more details on learning outcomes.
Meeting your ethics requirement
To meet your ethics CPD requirement, you can access ICAEW's free annual Ethics CPD course.
You can choose to carry out alternative ethics training to comply with the new ethics requirement. This must be verifiable and must cover the following learning outcomes:
- Ensures up-to-date knowledge, understanding and confidence that will enable you to demonstrate high standards of ethical conduct in your professional role.
- Provides an understanding of why professional ethics matters and an appreciation of how ICAEW’s Code of Ethics provides a framework for helping you meet your professional responsibilities.
- Develops your competence and confidence in making ethical decisions.
- Provides awareness of, and ability to apply, the additional ethical guidance that is relevant to you as a specialist.
Case study:
Hope Davidson qualified as an ICAEW member in 2010. They left the profession to work as a freelance photographer. However, they serve as a trustee on the board of an arts charity in a voluntary capacity and have done so for several years.
Hope's CPD requirements
Hope uses the CPD self-assessment tool to identify whether they are affected by the CPD Regulations. Although Hope no longer works in finance or accountancy, they have obligations under the regulations because they serve as a trustee of a charity.
Hope is required to undertake on an annual basis:
- a minimum of one hour of ethics training; and
- ICAEW's CPD training for charity trustees or equivalent learning that meets similar learning outcomes.
They are also required to keep records and make them available to ICAEW on request.
Hope's CPD activities
Hope takes advantage of the free resources from ICAEW to complete their annual CPD. They complete the first module of ICAEW's ethics CPD course and complete ICAEW's new CPD course for charity trustees.
| CPD required | Undertaken CPD | ||
| Ethics training | 1 hour | Module 1 of ICAEW ethics CPD course |
1 hour |
| Charity trustees training | ICAEW CPD training for charity trustees |
Online CPD record
As an ICAEW member, it's easy to manage your CPD activities and record your progress against CPD requirements in your online CPD Record.
Get started
You can access ICAEW resources to meet your annual CPD requirements.
Charity trustees trainingEthics course