Declaring CPD

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is defined as the responsibility of individuals to maintain their professional credibility by demonstrating that their knowledge, understanding, and skills are maintained, developed, and updated. Demonstration of CPD shows commitment to your professional development and maintenance of high standards. It is also a useful tool to use to evaluate your achievements of the previous calendar year or previous 12 months, and to identify and prioritise your future development needs. 

No minimum hours of CPD have been set for SiLCs. Ideally though annual CPD should be 90 hours or more, although quality of CPD is an important factor, so fewer hours of good quality CPD may be better than many hours with less benefit. Below is a list of examples that may contribute towards CPD if undertaken in relevant subject areas. The list provides examples but is not exhaustive. If you are unsure whether an activity will be deemed relevant, please include it. 

• Day to day practice where new knowledge is gained (analysis, research, writing reports, peer reviews, etc); 

• Development of skills and knowledge through work-based activities; 

• Keeping up to date with guidance, legislation, and regulation; 

• Teamwork, leadership, staff management and coaching; 

• Involvement with regulators on specific issues and local policy development; 

• Policy and practice formulation, consultations; 

• Teaching, lecturing, tutoring, development of courses, procedures, and policy; 

• Attending or presenting at training courses, seminars, conferences, or workshops, including knowledge/skills gained; 

• Attending or presenting at SiLC Annual Forum, Introduction Days, Assessors Meetings or Webinars; 

• In-house training and distance learning programmes; 

• Voluntary work in support of a suitable area; 

• Involvement in working groups/focus groups/forums/panels/professional bodies;  

• Reading relevant journals/magazines/books; 

• Networking; 

• Writing papers and articles; 

• Technical meetings/briefings/presentations; 

SiLCs cover a wide range of activities in land condition. You could be involved in climate change, sustainability, decarbonisation, etc and other types of work that relate to the evolution of our industry but do not necessarily involve either the preparation or the review of contaminated land reports or the supervision of contaminated land investigation and/or remediation. The former activities will be equally acceptable as CPD. Likewise, your main activity could be training, preparation of workshops, university lecturing or similar, to the exclusion of the other forms of CPD listed above. In this case your CPD return should demonstrate where you have gained either new skills or knowledge in the researching for and preparation of presentation material, etc or from the forum in which this material has been presented, provided that, it also identifies and prioritises your future development needs 

Circumstances may arise where you are unable to undertake an active CPD programme, for example illness, career break and maternity/paternity leave.  In these circumstances you should make a written request to the SiLC Secretariat for consideration for exemption by the PTP, and the requirement for CPD may be waived for a specified period.  Exemptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Even with an exemption, you should, if possible, endeavor to keep abreast of current developments in your field by reading etc. CPD is not required for fully retired SiLCs.