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Governance and appeals

Accreditation decisions affect a provider's business, so they have to be challengeable. This page sets out how we are governed and how to appeal.

To be completed. The governance structure below describes the intended arrangement. Confirm the actual board, panel membership and company details, and replace the placeholders in src/lib/site.ts, before publishing.

Governance

CPD Accredited operates a separation between three functions: setting the Standards, assessing against them, and deciding appeals. No individual sits in more than one of the three for the same activity.

  • Standards. Editions of the Standards are approved before publication, and consultation responses are published alongside the changes made.
  • Assessment. Assessors and second assessors reach decisions under the method set out in how we accredit.
  • Appeals. Appeals are decided by people who took no part in the original decision.

Appealing a decision

Any accreditation decision can be appealed: refusal, conditions, suspension or withdrawal.

  1. Lodge the appeal within 30 days of the decision, stating the grounds.
  2. The appeal is acknowledged within 5 working days, and we confirm which grounds we accept as arguable.
  3. A panel that took no part in the original decision reviews the submission, the assessment report, and your grounds.
  4. The outcome is issued within 30 working days, with reasons. The panel can uphold the decision, vary it, or return the submission for reassessment.

An appeal fee is payable on lodging and refunded if the appeal succeeds. See fees and timelines.

Grounds for appeal

An appeal has to say what went wrong with the decision, not simply that you disagree with it.

Arguable groundsNot grounds
  • Evidence supplied was not considered
  • An outcome was applied incorrectly or inconsistently
  • The wrong edition of the Standards was used
  • A procedural step was missed, such as a query not being raised
  • A conflict of interest was not managed
  • New evidence created after the decision, which is a fresh application
  • Disagreement with an outcome in the Standards itself
  • The commercial impact of the decision
  • That another provider was accredited for something similar

Complaints about us

A complaint is different from an appeal. An appeal challenges a decision; a complaint concerns how we behaved, for example delay, conduct or a failure to follow our own process.

Complaints go to hello@cpdaccredited.co.uk, are acknowledged within 5 working days, and are answered within 20. If the response does not resolve it, you can ask for it to be reviewed by someone not involved in the original handling.

What we publish

  • The Standards, in full, free to read.
  • The register, including conditions, suspensions and withdrawals.
  • Consultation responses, including changes we decided against and why.
  • Fees.

We do not publish individual assessment reports. They belong to the provider, and publishing them would discourage the candour that makes assessment useful.