Helping small businesses with auto enrolment and maintaining CPD

This update covers:

1. Helping small businesses with auto enrolment
2. Our accredited CPD system
3. Maintaining your Regulation and Ethics knowledge through CPD

1. Helping small businesses with auto enrolment
This is one of those rather dry and dull topics, but as auto enrolment is a legal requirement it’s essential knowledge that could be a huge feather in the cap for any well prepared financial adviser. Even if you don’t want to get involved professionally, it is an area where some of your target audience may become captivated if what they should do can just roll off your tongue. It is also relevant CPD so advisers should know about it and can use the learning experience to impress and add to the required CPD count.

Staging dates continue to roll by. However, there are businesses that have missed their staging date and there are businesses that are new! There will always be businesses with questions about auto enrolment and when you have answered those you can move onto something else, something like relevant life, investments or group PHI!

Employers with less than 30 employees are staging now and up until the end of March 2017, which means preparation should be underway even if the staging date has not yet been reached; technically AE should be a hot topic on planet SME.

Post March 2017 employers with no payroll should have notified The Pensions Regulator? This is something definitely worth knowing, and then there are staging dates for new employers.

There are still businesses to target and help and of course those with no employees who still have to do something may appreciate some help from their financial adviser, possibly just having it pointed out to them! Even a sole director with no employees has something to do - they must tell The Pensions Regulator.

Do any of your clients employ anyone over age 22 who earns more than £10,000 per annum? Whether they work in the business or for the client privately, they must be enrolled. So, nannies and domestic cleaners could qualify. Ask yourself the question – do my target clients, typical clients or wish list of clients employ domestic staff?

The individual staging date for small businesses are now arriving thick and fast. To get up to date information someone should register a primary contact with the Pension Regulator.

Here at Wizard Learning this is covered in more detail in chapter 2 of our Workplace pension reform module, which is part of the accredited CPD system.

2. Our accredited CPD system
Following a number of recent enquiries regarding accreditation for the Wizard Learning CPD system see here for details, we have added the information below to our Training material help page. 

The Wizard Learning CPD system is accredited by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI).

We have built the CPD system reports with the CII requirements in mind. The reports meet all the CII's requirements plus you evidence all the CPD taken with assessment results. The system also assists with the CII's reflective statement requirements, as you can set the reports to include a generic reflective and development need statement for each CPD item in your report. You can modify the statements by exporting them to Excel and amending the wording to reflect your personal experience.
 

Standards International have also reviewed the accredited CPD system and their report says:

• The contents of the courses are detailed and of good technical content
• The site is very user friendly and easy to navigate
• Content is good technically and for ease of reading and understanding
• Audio presentations have good content and structure
• The Learning to Learn skills courses are very useful
• The CPD system recording tool covers all the areas required by the FCA to be recorded and evidenced for good quality CPD and which is required by adviser’s SPS accreditation body
• This is a really good system for individuals and firms to use.

3. Maintaining your Regulation and Ethics knowledge through CPD
To ensure that all our users are fully prepared for the CII’s new examination syllabus, which started in September 2016, we carried out extensive updates across all of our online materials. The most obvious changes made throughout the materials are the references to the tax year (2016/17), the new tax rates and allowances and the re-working of all associated example calculations and questions.

However, due to some changes in taxation and other laws, there are certain changes which create new impacts on a number of areas important to the provision of advice.

The main changes to the sections for the R01 Regulation and Ethics online course are listed below and are included in our accredited CPD system. All changes have also been reflected in the chapter assessments and the gap analysis assessments.

Although throughout the online courses there are many other minor amendments, as a part of your ongoing CPD it is recommended that you fully familiarise yourself with these major changes to ensure that your knowledge and understanding is fully up-to-date. By using the Wizard Learning accredited CPD system you will have access not only to all these updated courses but also all the learning materials for all of these diploma courses. These can be used at any time to refresh your knowledge of specific areas, and by carrying out gap analysis assessments over the year from each of the subjects as a part of your overall CPD plan, you can use the assessment results to identify areas of weakness against the learning outcomes and plan future CPD activities.

This article ‘R’ you doing the right CPD? covers how to meet the exacting standards for Statement of Professional Standing (SPS) CPD.

R01 Personal taxation: Online Multimedia Course

The top 5 areas covered by the major changes to consider first are:

• How savings are taxed, including the new Personal Savings Allowance
• How dividends are taxed, including the new Dividend Allowance and new rates
• Mortgage Credit Directive and the changes to the regulation of certain types of loan
• Controlled functions and compliance with Statements of Principle
• Senior Managers and Certification Regime

Free trial - Try the CPD system before you purchase
We recommend that you try the Wizard Learning accredited CPD system by requesting a free trial and you will have a week to try it to see how well it meets your requirements. If you have an existing record then login and click on the "My Account" link on the left hand menu. If you have not previously registered then register here, login and then click on the "My Account" link.

Wizard Learning Ltd

Provider of accredited online training and CPD system for financial advisers and financial services professionals.

We are committed to helping you gain higher level qualifications and maintain this knowledge through effective continuous professional development.