Why our courses don’t carry formal CPD accreditation — and why that’s absolutely fine
If you’ve ever browsed our course library and wondered why you don’t see a CPD-certified logo stamped across everything, you’re not alone in noticing. It’s a reasonable question, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a corporate non-answer. So here it is.
The cost reality of formal CPD accreditation
CPD accreditation schemes are run by membership organisations, and membership costs money. When we looked into this properly, the pricing structure gave us pause. Schemes are typically priced per course or event — not per minute of learning, not per learner, but per individual course title. For an organisation like ours, where some modules are deliberately short (a focused 15-minute explainer on a specific topic is often far more useful than an hour of padding), that model simply doesn’t stack up.
Think about it: a crisp, well-designed 15-minute module on business impact analysis and a three-hour deep-dive workshop would attract exactly the same accreditation fee. That’s not a reflection of learning value — it’s just a counting exercise. And once you factor in annual renewal costs across a growing course library, the numbers become genuinely difficult to justify without passing them on to learners. At around £20 per learner per course, you’d need a lot of completions before you even broke even on the accreditation fee alone — let alone the time involved in the application process.
We’d rather put that money into making the courses better.
What most professional bodies actually require
Here’s something that often gets lost in the CPD conversation: the majority of professional bodies don’t actually require every course you complete to carry independent CPD verification. What they care about is whether:
- the learning is relevant to your role and professional development
- you can evidence that the learning took place
- you’re reflecting on and applying what you’ve learned
Every RiskReady course comes with a certificate of completion. That certificate is your evidence. Whether you’re logging hours for the BCI, ICPEM, or any other body, a certificate from a named, specialist provider — with a clear description of the learning content — is entirely sufficient for the vast majority of CPD records.
The honest pros and cons
To be fair about it, formal CPD accreditation does carry some advantages. It provides an independent mark that a course meets a certain standard, which can be reassuring for learners who don’t know a provider. For large organisations with procurement processes that specifically require accredited training, it can simplify sign-off. And some professional bodies — a minority — do require verified CPD for certain qualifications or membership tiers.
On the other side: accreditation schemes vary enormously in rigour. The presence of a CPD logo doesn’t automatically mean the content is better — it means someone paid a membership fee and submitted a course description. It tells you very little about the quality of the instructional design, the accuracy of the content, or whether the learning will actually stick. We’d argue that knowing your training was written and delivered by a practising ISO 22301 Lead Auditor with real-world client experience tells you rather more than a badge from a membership body.
What we do instead
Rather than spending on accreditation fees, we focus on what actually makes a difference to learners:
- Courses written and animated by a human expert with hands-on experience, not generated from a template
- Plain English throughout — no unnecessary jargon
- Certificates of completion for every course, suitable for CPD logging
- Content that reflects how business continuity and information security actually work in practice, not just what the standards say on paper
If your organisation or professional body specifically requires formally accredited CPD and that’s a genuine blocker, do get in touch — we’re happy to have that conversation. But for most learners, most of the time, our courses will do exactly what good CPD is supposed to do: help you get better at your job.
And that, in the end, is the point.