Whatever type of designation you hold, you must complete continuing professional education (CPE) each year. The number of hours required varies from 20 to 40 according to the designation you hold. You must record this activity and save evidence that you completed it, what you learned, and how you applied this in your role.
All this sounds like a lot of “musts”, but CPE is far more valuable and much more interesting than the baseline compliance requirements. A little extra thought and attention can multiply the rewards many times over.
CPE done well could have a significant impact on your work and your career. But it needs to be about forethought – not hastily submitted as an afterthought. If you do not plan ahead, you are likely to miss opportunities to broaden your skills and knowledge. You are also wasting an opportunity to add value and interest to your role, function and future development.
“For me, as a chief audit executive (CAE), CPE was about my personal journey of development and how I wanted my team to develop,” says Fiona Case, Head of Professional Practices at the Chartered IIA. “It’s about investing in ourselves and our teams so we can be as good as we can be. How else can we ensure we are ‘match fit’ with the skills to thrive in a changing environment and be effective trusted advisors?”
She argues that CPE is what underpins professional internal audit work and skills, drives conversations with Audit Committee Chairs and feeds into every developing internal audit area.
Planning your CPE creates a vital (and precious) opportunity to step outside your daily role and think about what you plan to do in the coming year, how your personal skills and your work are developing and what your next steps should be.
Consider the requirements of the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS). Standard 3.2, Continuing professional development, states “internal auditors must maintain and continually develop their competencies to improve the effectiveness and quality of internal audit services.”
Regarding team skills, Standard 10.2, human resources management, says “the chief audit executive must establish an approach to recruit, develop, and retain internal auditors who are qualified to successfully implement the internal audit strategy and achieve the internal audit plan.”
Case suggests focusing on hot topics and emerging risks, such as the concerns highlighted in the latest Risk in Focus research. “For example, a key issue for all internal audit teams is resilience. What is happening to your supply chain? What scenario planning do you do? How fast can you pivot?” Case says. “If you can’t see what’s coming next, you must be ready to move fast when something happens and be confident that your decisions reflect all the available facts.”
CPE is crucial to this kind of insight and foresight, she says. “So much of the internal audit role is about developing your judgment. This is based on your technical skills, experience and life skills used together. It’s about looking ahead, not behind,” she says.
This goes back to the core purpose of internal audit. Case suggests that members planning their CPE should start by looking at the IIA Global Competencies Framework to identify what they should do next.
The Chartered IIA and IIA Global provide a host of resources that support CPE. Many are free, so budgets should not be a barrier.
The Chartered IIA’s webinars are generally free and enable members to learn from experts and connect with peers with similar concerns. Its technical guidance, research projects and reports, articles, and how to audit guides can all be counted towards self-learning directed CPE activity.
For those with a budget, the Chartered IIA provides training courses on a multitude of topics and these can also be tailored to your organisation’s needs and run in-house. On-demand courses are also available and are particularly useful for those who wish to learn in their own time from their desks.
Ethics is an essential part of CPE – all members must complete two hours of ethics learning annually. The Chartered IIA’s Ethics and Professionalism for Internal Auditors course allows participants to record three CPE points and those who move fast can get a 20% discount on the next one on 9 July. The on-demand course Ethics and Professionalism counts for one CPE point.
Attending conferences and events also counts towards CPE, with the Internal Audit Conference on 29-30 September offering a maximum of 38 points for those who attend in-person for both days, or up to 30 points for attending both days online. People who buy the on-demand conference package can claim up to 24 CPE points.
More generally, Youtube videos, webinars and reports are available from a multitude of experts and consultants, and these may be useful for niche areas or specific concerns – for example, sanctions regimes, climate change mitigation risks or sustainability reporting.
Of course, none of these activities should be undertaken purely to build up CPE hours. The real value lies in the chance to talk to peers, think about the wider risk environment and emerging risks, learn about the solutions that others are applying and make valuable contacts who you can learn from, and exchange views with, in the future.
But this is the point of CPE generally. “It’s not about the doing, it’s about the outcomes,” Case stresses. “How are you using your new knowledge to inform your work and improve your judgment?”
Make CPE a talking point to gain maximum benefits, she urges. “Use it to explain what you and your team are doing to address emerging risks and improve what you offer the business. This is what matters.”
All members must complete CPE and report it either to the Chartered IIA or to IIA Global. No one needs to submit CPE to both bodies, no matter how many designations they hold.
Everyone who holds a CIA designation must report CPE to IIA Global via its CCMS. The reporting period reflects the calendar year, so runs from 1 January to 31 December. They do not have to report to the Chartered IIA, even if they also hold a Chartered IIA designation.
Anyone with the CIA designation who fails to report CPE to IIA Global for three consecutive years will have this designation revoked.
Those who hold only a Chartered IIA designation – and not the CIA – must report CPE to the Chartered IIA. The reporting period corresponds with membership renewals, so runs from 1 April to 31 March each year.
The Chartered IIA provides a template for members without the CIA, but with a Chartered IIA designation, to record their CPE activities. It is essential to collect and store evidence of CPE activity, such as certificates of attendance on a course or at an event, for three years. Activity that does not provide evidence should be signed off by your manager.
You must describe the activity, explain your aims and objectives, highlight what you learned – and, most importantly, how you have applied this learning – as well as the number of CPE points you are claiming.
