Alan Tottle
Alan Tottle is Internal Audit Manager at Dorset Internal Audit Consortium. Here he explains more about his learning and development, in relation to ACCA's CPD requirements, and how he is going to record his CPD evidence.
Dorset Internal Audit Consortium is an NHS organisation that is contracted to undertake internal audit s for a number of NHS trusts within Dorset . Based in Ferndown, Dorset, Alan's work takes him to Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester, and Yeovil.
'Day to day, I manage the audit plan for my five assigned clients. This includes setting up audit s for staff, undertaking audit s, reviewing audit working papers and finalising audit reports. Typically I manage 100 audit s within my client portfolio, undertaking about 30 audit s myself a year. These can range from looking at finance aspects of the organisation, such as budgetary control and treasury management to looking at how specific risks detailed on the Risk Register are being managed such as infection control and patient consent risks.'
Admitted to membership in 2001, Alan is following the unit route and as such is required to complete 40 units of CPD during 2005 and complete an annual return by 1 January each year. 'I read up on the requirements of the CPD scheme through the general correspondence that I received from ACCA. I also found that the ACCA Realise web resource contains a lot of useful information. I am also a member of the Southern Members Network Panel and through various meetings the new CPD requirements were discussed.'
As an internal audit or for the NHS, Alan takes part in a wide variety of activities in the course of his work. 'It's no longer purely financial internal audit,' explains Alan. 'The internal audit arena has changed in recent years and we are now looking more at wide-ranging risk. We have now become almost specialists or consultants in risk. Working in the NHS, standards are continually changing following changes required by the Department of Health and other health sector bodies. New guidelines are regularly released so we continually have to look at how these guidelines are being incorporated into the organisation's working practices and the risks managed. The job is constantly evolving and extremely varied.'
Different development
Annual appraisals allow Alan to identify development areas with his manager. Generally these areas are addressed by attending courses. 'Within an organisation as large as the NHS there are always courses to suit and that are relevant to my job. I usually attend technical courses specific to health sector accounting or audit related fields depending on areas that have been identified via the development areas from my appraisal.'
Alan recently attended a technical course on working with foundation trusts. 'With all NHS Trusts eventually becoming Foundation Trusts over the next couple of years, this subject had been identified as an area of development that would be important to me in my current role. The course was relevant to my job, because it would allow me to have a better understanding of the processes needed to obtain Foundation Trust status and the difficulties that can be faced. As such, I would include it as part of my verifiable unit requirement. In order to satisfy ACCA's evidence requirements, I will keep my course notes and a certificate of attendance for the necessary three years, together with notes on the relevance to my role - keeping them for this period does not pose a problem for me because I tend to be a bit of a hoarder anyway.'
However, courses are not the only way that Alan achieves his CPD requirement. 'As an internal audit or, I am required to do a great deal of on-the-job training. For each audit that I do, and in some years I can be involved with over 100 audit s, I have to do substantial research before I start. I have learned now, through gaining understanding of the ACCA Realise requirements, that this activity can be included as part of my 40 units of CPD that I am required to do.'
'I've recently had to do an audit of infection control and in order to complete this effectively I had to undertake research on the Internet to find examples of best practice. I then try to apply this knowledge and come up with an audit plan based on areas of risk identified. A typical audit takes five to 10 days to complete and in general I would spend up to a day preparing of which three to four hours can be spent on research. Again, this can form part of my annual CPD unit requirement. By completing the research satisfactorily and finalising the audit report I should be able to show that I have understood and been able to apply the knowledge that I gained from my research.'
Over the course of a typical year, this pre- audit research means Alan clocks up over 90 units of CPD simply through normal work routines. However, ACCA does not need to see evidence for all these units - only 21 verifiable units and 19 non verifiable units need to be included on Alan's CPD return. 'I know I am in a fantastic position in terms of CPD, as I seem to do a great deal of learning and development. Although ACCA only needs to see evidence of 21 verifiable units, I understand that if I want to I can carry over 21 units of 'extra' verifiable CPD each year. This could be useful to me if I ever want to take a career break for example.'
In addition, Alan is also a member of the Southern Members Network Panel. 'We come from a varying backgrounds and meet throughout the year to organise various CPD events and sort out administration matters. This has been a good opportunity for me to understand ACCA's overall objectives, feel that I am making a contribution rather than simply being a member and meet finance professionals from different backgrounds.' In addition, members of the panel report back on technical updates so Alan can keep up to date with areas of accounting that he might not use on a day-to-day basis. 'I would consider my attendance at these meetings would contribute to my CPD requirement, especially the technical updates. Although this type of learning opportunity could be classed as verifiable, I would put this down to be included as part of my non-verifiable CPD.'
Evidence essentials
Using ACCA's online evidence tool allows Alan to keep his CPD records up to date and he can be sure that as long as he has input sufficient and relevant CPD, and confirms this by submitting his CPD return, that he will meet his requirements for each year. Logging onto the myACCA area of the ACCA website allows Alan to access his personal CPD evidence record and he can input each piece of CPD that he does into this record.
Alan uses ACCA's online evidence tool to keep his evidence for the CPD that he has done. The evidence tools provided by ACCA are designed to assist members in retaining evidence and give guidance as to what will be required by ACCA. Using the online evidence tool, Alan is able to add new details about CPD activities, or update existing CPD activities. The evidence tool displays a personal summary of what CPD needs to be done for each year and what activity has been completed to date. It also includes a link to the online annual return tool which Alan can use at the end of the year to submit his CPD return to ACCA. 'I'm trying to fill in the online evidence tool on a regular basis in order that I don't have to do it in one go at the end of the year. Having said that, it's useful to know that I don't have to send in my evidence record unless I am selected for CPD monitoring. The online evidence form is relatively easy to fill in. The free text boxes do make me pause for thought, because it's important to find the right words to explain the relevance of a particular piece of learning or development activity.'
Thoughts on CPD
'As an internal audit or I've moved away from traditional financial audit s and because each audit project requires me to learn something that I'm not familiar with, every day I undertake some sort of CPD. However, because learning activities need to be relevant I think that the CPD scheme will make accountants think more about how they achieve their lifelong learning and ensure that we all continually update our skills.'