CPD FAQs

Planning is a varied and challenging profession with a fast pace of change, requiring planners to continue to develop their skills, learn and be aware of current issues on an ongoing basis. CPD shows to the public that a person is professionally committed to their profession and membership of the RTPI sends a signal to employers, clients and the public as to the level of your competence as a professional. It is therefore important to maintain this competence in line with changes in planning law, to the planning system, and to your role.

You can now record your CPD online on your profile page - read our guidelines for more information.

Each member is required to complete a minimum of 50 hours of CPD over a two-year period. This must be relevant to your development as a planner.

If you are on maternity/paternity/adoption leave or have leave for any reason, including a career break, you are still expected to complete your CPD but for a minimum of 37.5 hours over the two-year period.

You can now record your CPD online on your profile page - read our guidelines for more information.

A PDP is your plan for your own development over the next 2 years. The RTPI offers a template PDP which allows you to record your future development. It should outline your current situation, setting objectives, and identifying means of meeting these objectives. Your objectives might relate to maintaining and improving your competence in your current role, or to working towards a change of role or career direction. Good examples have been put together to illustrate how a PDP can be constructed, although these are not planning related, whereas yours must be.

Allow approximately 1 hour. A PDP template is available if you wish to use it.

Make sure your PDP is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based) and write down all the jobs you are expected to do in your current work, the areas you need to be knowledgeable about, the skills you need and the changes that are likely to occur in the next 2 years.

Write down your strength and development areas. You may want to use a SWOT analysis to help you to identify these. Consider your short and longer-term career ambitions and the timescale to achieve them. Write your CPD objectives for the 2 years to address your development areas and career ambitions.

Think about:

a. How will you achieve your objective?
b. How will you know that you have achieved it?
c. The time scale for achieving your objectives.

Once you have completed your PDP, you should then review your PDP annually, as you should already be planning for next year. Regularly review and update your PDP in line with any changes to your current work and future plans.

There isn't a prescribed format for the PDP so you can use your workplace appraisal if it identifies your personal development objectives. However, often appraisals are focussed on work tasks more than your development so you may wish to write your own PDP, so that you can focus on your career beyond your current role. You can use our PDP template.

The RTPI is not prescriptive about the types of activity that count as CPD, recognising that you are the best person to assess the value of an activity to your professional development. However, nothing should be automatically accepted as CPD unless you have personally learnt from it. When considering whether an activity counts as CPD you should initially refer back to your Professional Development Plan to see whether it will help your development objectives. We also understand that you may come across unexpected opportunities for CPD that you had not planned for in your PDP. These can be recorded if you believe that they will improve your competence but you should explain this in your CPD record and you should update your PDP accordingly. 

Some examples of different types and methods of professional development activity can be found on the Sources of CPD webpage.

The RTPI does not assign hours or points to different CPD activities because you are the best person to recognise how much you have learnt from an individual activity. When you are recording an activity you should ask yourself, how many hours of learning did I get from this?

For example:

• Where someone has attended a 7-hour conference but already knew the material that was covered during half of the conference they would record 3.5 hours.
• Where you have taken on a new area of work and need to develop the skills and knowledge to do it. You may want to count the hours of research and on-the-job learning that you do until you have developed the skills and knowledge that you need and the work becomes part of your day-to-day job.

The RTPI does not prescribe a form for CPD records although a template is available. We recommend that you use the template, but recognise that you may also record CPD for another professional body or for your workplace. If you choose to use a different format, it should be in a form that allows simple recording and reflection on the progress of your CPD and can be submitted to the RTPI on request.

Your CPD record should include:

• A record of those activities that have helped improve your competence and effectiveness as a planning professional;
• A reflection on what you have learnt from each CPD activity;
• The date(s) on which each activity was undertaken;
• The number of hours attributable to each activity.

You can now record your CPD online on your profile page - read our guidelines for more information.

The RTPI monitors members' CPD activity on a regular basis and those chosen to submit their CPD and PDP records are selected randomly from the membership database. When selected for monitoring, Members will receive a letter from the Professional Development Manager asking for records. The letter will also provide a timescale for submission.

You can now record your CPD online on your profile page - read our guidelines for more information.

Members failing to comply with the monitoring process may be in breach of the Code of Professional Conduct and subject to investigation by the Conduct and Discipline Panel. This is often a last resort measure and the Institute is keen to ensure that the monitoring process is effective and efficient, and is seen as a service to members. If you have any questions about CPD monitoring please contact the RTPI Professional Development Manager at monitoring@rtpi.org.uk

The RTPI Core CPD Framework, developed with input from members, employers and the wider profession, highlights the skills and knowledge areas our members need to meet the planning challenges of today and the future. The framework provides a comprehensive overview of the core CPD for you to consider when you are planning your CPD. The Framework is used to structure the CPD delivered by the Institute.

As part of completing your CPD, you need to reflect on what you have learnt in each activity that you completed. This reflection is also required when comparing your PDP requirements from the previous year, to those tasks you completed in the current year. A reflective statement allows you to demonstrate how you completed a task and also to analyse what you learnt from it. There is a section within the CPD template to account for your reflective statement.

Although retired members are exempt from CPD, until you are fully retired and have transferred to retired membership you are required to undertake and record CPD. Your membership of the RTPI is a sign of professional competence and as long as you are still practicing you are required to maintain your professional competence through professional development. When you are approaching retirement, you may want to use your Professional Development Plan to plan ways in which you continue to use your skills during your retirement.

Members on maternity/paternity or adoption leave are exempt from CPD monitoring for six months. This means that you need to record 37.5 hours of learning activity in each two-year period. If you take a longer period of leave, you are required to keep up-to-date with your CPD and we recognise that the methods you use for this time may be different from those you would use whilst working. You might want to consider reading the technical press or using your Keeping in Touch days for CPD.

All members (apart from retired members) are required to comply with the CPD requirements even if they are not currently working in a planning role. The need to ensure that you keep up-to-date with your planning knowledge is essential to your CPD requirements.

If you are working part-time or job-sharing, you will need to be equally competent to those in full-time work, and will be expected to undertake the full 50 hours CPD over any two-year period.

If you are under CPD monitoring or PDP support and would like to contact the team or you have any enquiries about CPD please contact the Professional Development Manager at:

Royal Town Planning Institute
41 Botolph Lane
London
EC3R 8DL
Email: [email protected]