The Chartered Insurance Institute suffered from fresh technical issues last week after an adviser queried why he could not log into his Continuing Professional Development (CPD) account for three days.
From Wednesday to Friday last week, chartered financial planner Filip Slipaczek told FTAdviser he could not log into his CPD account.
A spokesperson for the CII said a technical issue did result in "some members" being unable to log in to the CII’s CPD tool on Thursday (September 29).
There’s too much in-fighting, rather than looking after the interests of the membership.“This issue was resolved yesterday (October 3). We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused,” they added.
Slipaczek said he was told by the CII’s customer services team over the phone that the tool had, in fact, been down since Wednesday (September 28).
“As a former elected SOFA [precursor of Personal Finance Society] director, I am very upset at the direction the CII and the PFS are travelling in,” said Slipaczek.
“There’s too much in-fighting, rather than looking after the interests of the membership. It is clearly evident that for three working days the CPD tool was down.”
In the past, members of the PFS and the CII have been at loggerheads over the PFS’s independence and the flow of money between the two entities.
The two now claim to have reached an “agreement in principle” following constructive discussions.
Slipaczek said other bodies’ CPD tools can go down, but “not for three days”.
“This rarely happens with the CPD tools available to me for my other chartered bodies,” he said.
“CPD is now even more important with the Insurance Distribution Directive in 2018 that each adviser, irrespective of whether he/she does protection, must do 15 hours of protection CPD.”
Slipaczek said he was still waiting for his life assurance CPD certificate.
The CII has suffered a string of technical issues over the past few years, making this the ninth issue FTAdviser has reported on over the past year.
Other issues have centred around the CII’s exam system. In May, Robert Doogan, chartered financial planner at Cullen Wealth, said it had taken him more than three weeks to even attempt to book an exam.
He said the CII’s exam booking service was “extremely poor” and "no longer fit for purpose".
Between January 2021 to March 2022, FTAdviser understands the CII delivered 62,000 examinations and received 1,906 complaints, equating to around 3 per cent of candidates.
But one adviser, who did not wish to be named, highlighted how one complaint can represent the experience of multiple advisers.
“I made a single complaint to CII six months ago. That was recorded as one complaint, but it was sent on behalf of around 35 students who had experienced issues,” they said.
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
