CPD well ahead of first-year targets

The events-based CPD system, Continual Professional Development & Events, has easily beaten its first-year target.
Set up by Construction Industry Council South East last October, the system brings together the events programmes of five key professional bodies (including the Institution of Civil Engineers, Royal Institute of British Architects and the Chartered Institute of Building), Constructing Excellence and the South East Centre for the Built Environment (SECBE).
"Our target for the first year was to get 12 companies interested and people were saying there was no way we would get that many. We now have 26 event providers, which is remarkable considering we only had a shoestring budget," said SECBE director Derek Rees.
The system features three key elements - regional forums, an event database and events web-site, www.cpdevents.org.uk.
SECBE believes the website provides a number of benefits to the user: there is no need to trawl through various institutions' individual websites; it overcomes artificial geographic and organisational barriers; and it offers multi-disciplinary learning.
A workshop takes place on Thursday 11 November 2004 at Englemere. Details are available on the CPD website.
n Nearly 300 people have signed up for free trials of CJ's CPD service, CPD Construction. Log on at www.cpdconstruction.com.