CPD Accreditation Service Providers can choose to be certified by The CPD Register If you want us to recognise your organisation as a certified CPD Accreditation Service Provider, you should apply to become ‘The CPD Register Certified’.
You’ll want to ensure you have a full understanding of what being Certified by The CPD Register means: it’s a significant undertaking that confers tangible benefits but also imposes requirements that are likely to have an impact on your business. This is because certified organisations must comply with our standards and guidelines on an ongoing basis.
The benefits of being a certified CPD Accreditation Service Provider, by the CPD Register, include the following:
To become a certified CPD Accreditation Service Provider, you’ll need to demonstrate that you have the potential to review, assess and help develop valid CPD Content and CPD Activities, whilst demonstrating a firm understanding of CPD. You will need to show us you have the expertise, governance, controls and financial capacity to do so effectively on an ongoing basis. Once certified, as a part of the certified community you will need to comply with our rules as set out in our Conditions of Certification and any other rules applying to the particular type of CPD within your scope of certification and recognition. Ongoing compliance includes submitting an annual statement of compliance, data returns, and being subject to possible audit (and investigation if we have cause for concern). You’ll also need to keep up to date with our communications.
We aim to minimise the burden of our certification and we operate a risk-based approach. Our rules are outcomes-based, which means we specify what it is that CPD Accreditation Service Providers need to do rather than how they must do it. We aim to support compliance by CPD Accreditation Service Providers, including through the sharing of good practice.
The decision to apply for certification should not be taken lightly, and we’re here to help you understand whether The CPD Register Certification is for you and what you need to do to become recognised and certified by us. We will provide you with information and support to assist you in submitting a good quality application.
We assess applications for recognition against our Criteria for Recognition, which are focussed on four main areas, outlined on our Criteria of Recognition Document.
We want to understand how your organisation is set up and run, including:
We are looking for evidence that your organisation and your senior staff are suitably qualified and experienced in the area of education and CPD. Particularly focusing upon the reviewing and assessment of CPD Training Courses and CPD Activities.
We are looking for evidence that you have the right systems, processes, resources and finance in place to develop, deliver and manage your business – including a business plan and 3 years of financial projections or a minimum of 3 years trading history.
We need to be sure that you have the right level of competence to develop CPD Standards and review them on an ongoing basis to ensure high standards are met within the CPD Sector.
To be recognised, we must be satisfied that you meet all of the recognition criteria. The requirements set out in the criteria will enable us to have sufficient confidence that your organisation has the capability and competence to offer the specified accreditation services for which you are seeking to be recognised. By close reference to the criteria, you will need to demonstrate that your organisation has the appropriate systems and expertise to enable it to offer accreditation services effectively. When you submit your interest in becoming certified, we will explain the types of evidence we will need to see against each criterion.
Our Conditions of Certification set out the main rules that we expect all CPD Accreditation Service Providers to be capable of meeting, on an ongoing basis, once recognised. These conditions apply to all recognised CPD Accreditation Service Providers.
The first step, if you’re interested in seeking certification, is to familiarise yourself with the information on our website referenced above.
If you think being a certified CPD Accreditation Service Provider is the right choice for you, you apply through our dedicated webpage (https://thecpdregister.com/cpd-accreditation-providers). You will need to set up an account to use this. Before doing this please read our Privacy Statement.
Once you have set up an account, you will then be offered a meeting with The CPD Register team. This meeting should take place before starting your application. The meeting will help you understand our requirements and the application process.
We will talk about:
We will help ensure that you have all the information you need to be in a position to submit as comprehensive an application as you can.
Following the meeting, if you want to proceed with an application, we will provide you with access to the application form. We can continue to advise you to ensure you are providing sufficient supporting evidence.
It is important that you provide evidence which demonstrates how you meet each of the Criteria for Recognition. The evidence needs to be clear and unambiguous, so it shows how you will meet the criteria. For example, if your conflicts of interest policy states you monitor all relevant conflicts of interest, you should provide evidence of how you do (or plan to do) this monitoring. Please include clear referencing to, and labelling of, documents provided to support your application. And do ensure that the information you provide is complete. If your application is missing important information, we will be unable to progress it.
When you are ready to do so, submit your application and evidence.
Once you have submitted your application, a member of our certification team will be assigned to your application and will manage your application from that point onwards.
Our recognition team will carry out an initial check of your application. If they identify significant areas of omission or insufficient clarity, they will contact you and identify the additional information or explanation that we need. Your application may be returned to you, so you can provide the information or explanations identified.
When we have sufficient information, we will review your application in full. The review will identify whether you meet the recognition criteria. In doing so we might seek input from The CPD Register colleagues and seek further clarification from you. We will form a view on whether your understanding of and commitment to the development, delivery and award of CPD Accreditation is sufficient, having regard to the need to ensure you will operate in accordance with the Conditions of Certification and any additional regulatory requirements.
We consider each application on its own merits including the information you provide and any that we gather through our due diligence checks. If there are clear points where your application has failed to meet the criteria, it will be returned to you together with an explanation of what the issues are. We will offer you the opportunity to attend a feedback meeting to ensure that you understand what is needed to address the issues and you can resubmit your updated application to us at any time.
If the review suggests that the criteria have been or could be met, the final stage of the process is a meeting with The CPD Register team where you will have the opportunity to discuss your application with us. The meeting will be chaired by a senior member of The CPD Register’s staff and attended by members of staff with expertise relevant to your application.
Prior to the panel meeting we will let you know if there are any particular areas of your application that we wish to discuss with you.
Following the meeting, we will aim to write to you within 10 working days to confirm our decision. The panel can decide to recognise you as a Certified CPD Accreditation Service Provider or reject your application.
If we have decided to recognise you as a CPD Accreditation Service Provider, we:
If your application is rejected, you will be invited to a discussion to ensure that you understand why your application has been rejected and the next steps available to you (see section 6 below). If your application is rejected, you can re-submit your application up to 3 times within 12 months of the first rejection, without further charge.
To help prioritise our resources on reviewing certification applications, we will only consider a request for an internal review of a decision to reject a certification application after the organisation has submitted 3 or more certification applications to us, with the third application having been submitted within 12 months of the date of our first rejection decision. If you are eligible and wish to request an internal review of our decision, your request must be made via post, addressing your letter to the Legal Department within 10 working days of the date of our outcome letter. A review is not an opportunity to submit further evidence which you did not send us as part of the original application.
We will only accept and undertake a review on the following grounds:
In requesting a review, you will need to explain why you consider one of these grounds to be met. We reserve the right not to review the matter in the event you do not provide such explanation. The internal review will be a paper-based review carried out by an officer of The CPD Register who has had no previous involvement in your application.
We aim to respond within 4 weeks.
We would recommend that you review your application against the reasons set out in your outcome letter, the Criteria and our regulatory requirements before asking us to review our decision.
We may reject an application at an early stage of the process because insufficient documentation has been submitted. You are entitled to request a review of this assessment should you consider it to be incorrect. In requesting such a review, you must explain the reasons why you consider we made the wrong decision. We reserve the right to not review the matter in the event no reasons are provided. If your application is rejected, you can re-submit your application up to 3 times within 12 months of the first rejection, without further charge.
We may decide not to proceed to panel if our evaluation identifies significant issues with the application. Alternatively, the panel discussion might reveal issues with the application that prevents recognition. In either case, you are entitled to a request a review of our decision should you disagree with it.
We will undertake a review on the following grounds:
In requesting a review, you will need to explain why you consider one of these grounds to be met. We reserve the right not to review the matter in the event you do not provide such explanation. The internal review will be a paper-based review carried out by an officer of The CPD Register who has had no previous involvement in your application.