CPD Audit and Conditional Licence Renewal

The compliant total is 22 points, not 42. The 30 vendor webinars are recorded and have no assessment, so they are informal and capped at 10 points; the other 20 cannot be counted. The ethics workshop counts as 6 points and satisfies the minimum of 2 in ethics. The conference counts as 4 points and the journal club as 2 points, giving 6 structured technical points. The claimed 10 mentoring points cannot be counted because there is no log or other evidence of dates, hours, topics, or mentee sign-off; a bare claim is not verifiable CPD. The compliant total is therefore 10 + 6 + 4 + 2 = 22 points. He is 8 points short of the 30-point minimum, and he is also 4 points short of the 10-point structured technical minimum. His argument that 42 points exceed the requirement fails because the policy counts compliant categories, not raw claims. The audit should record the shortfall and the reasons, and Bello should be invited to provide any missing evidence before a final decision.

Renewal should not be granted automatically. A conditional renewal or a short deferral is proportionate, depending on the regulator's policy. Bello has demonstrated some genuine CPD, including ethics, and there is no evidence of dishonesty; the problem is category compliance and documentation. A 90-day remediation period is reasonable. During that period he should earn at least 8 additional points, of which at least 4 must be structured technical activity, such as an assessed short course, a technical workshop with assessment, or a supervised design review. He should also submit a mentoring log with dates, duration, topics, and mentee confirmation for any mentoring points he wishes to claim. If he completes the remediation, the licence can be renewed with the shortfall noted. If he does not, renewal should be deferred until compliance. The decision should be recorded with reasons so that the process is transparent and appealable. A punitive refusal is unnecessary because the deficiency is remediable and the public interest is protected by supervised practice and a short compliance window.

Bello should not claim the 10 mentoring points until he can produce evidence. He should reconstruct a mentoring log only from reliable records such as emails, calendars, meeting notes, and mentee confirmations; he must not invent entries after the audit. Going forward, each mentoring session should be recorded contemporaneously with date, duration, topic, actions agreed, and mentee sign-off. The episode shows that CPD is an evidence-based system, not a self-reported tally. A candidate who does valuable work but cannot document it is treated as non-compliant because the regulator cannot verify the claim. Bello should also check whether his employer's graduate scheme has a mentoring standard and align his records with it. The corrective action is not just to earn more points but to build a simple personal CPD file with certificates, attendance records, reflective notes, and evidence of application at work. That file should be maintained throughout the year so that an audit does not become a retrospective reconstruction exercise.