Continuing Professional Education
The Audit Registration Committees of the Institutes of Chartered Accountants in Britain are extremely interested in and concerned about continuing professional education (CPE). CPE is essential for all principals and employees who deal with audit work. Indeed, it is more than essential, it is compulsory. It is there to ensure that firms maintain their competence to do audit work and maintain the high professional standards expected of firms of chartered accountants.
Principals and employees must keep up-to-date with changes in company law, accounting and auditing standards, etc.
The amount of CPE is not expressed as an absolute total, but a target of 150 points. One point is given for each "unstructured" hour of CPE (e.g. reading) and three points for each "structured" hour (e.g. course attendance). Of the target of 150 at least 60 points should be structured activities. For auditors, half those amounts (i.e. 75 points of total and 30 points of structured education) should be audit-related. Thirty structured CPE points is, for example, 10 hours of course attendance.
The current system of CPE has been in place since 1991. There are no exemptions due to the age of the practitioner or the volume of audit work undertaken.
The ARCs accept that in any particular year the targets may not be met. It is important that auditing firms should take a conscientious approach to CPE. However, the ARCs are becoming increasingly concerned about firms who have done little, if any, CPE.
In the Committees' view, there is a wealth of CPE available. Courses are run by the institutes, district societies and commercial training organizations. There should be no excuse for not doing CPE. Firms should be aware that ARCs will take a firm line with firms who do inadequate CPE.