New thinking on continuing professional development

About the paper

Continuing professional development (CPD) is ongoing training, designed to help professionals develop and maintain knowledge and skills. In NSW, CPD is mandatory for more than half a million workers, including property agents, builders, nurses, solicitors and more. This government-mandated CPD is estimated to impose direct costs of over $1 billion on NSW professionals, businesses and government each year.

To ensure we get a good return on the time and resources spent on CPD, the Commission has reviewed regulatory requirements that mandate CPD:

• releasing a discussion paper, New thinking on continuing professional development, in December 2022, which included a draft checklist to test if mandatory CPD is justified, well designed and regularly reviewed; along with six guiding questions for stakeholder feedback 

• listening to feedback in the form of submissions from 28 government, regulatory and industry stakeholders on the draft checklist and other issues outlined in our discussion paper
• commissioning an independent ‘test run’ with four occupational deep dives – for property agents, builders, nurses and solicitors – to refine the draft checklist.

The deep dive found that government-mandated CPD may be more justified in some occupations than others. For example, for property agents, the analysis suggests that the costs are almost twice as large as the benefits, indicating that alternatives to CPD could be considered. In comparison, the case for CPD for nurses is stronger, with the analysis suggesting that the costs are equivalent to the benefits.

In our paper, we draw on stakeholder feedback and findings from the deep dives to outline the shortfalls of the current mandatory CPD system. We also present the final CPD checklist, which is intended as an optional tool for NSW regulatory agencies.

Key findings

• Mandatory CPD is not justified when there is no need for government intervention, existing market mechanisms already adequately ensure quality and safety, or suitable regulatory and non-regulatory alternatives are available.

• The benefits of mandatory CPD – like avoided costs, improved trust and increased productivity – do not always outweigh the costs of lost work hours, course fees and enforcement.

• Mandatory CPD is often poorly designed with unclear objectives, rigid structures, underused technology, onerous reporting, and limited competition among and oversight of providers.

• Mandatory CPD is either not reviewed at all or reviewed on an infrequent and unplanned basis, with very limited data collected.