A chartered professional is a person who has gained a specific level of skill or competence in a particular field of work, which has been recognised by the award of a formal credential by a relevant professional organization. [1] Chartered status is considered a mark of professional competency, and is awarded mainly by chartered professional bodies and learned societies. Common in Britain, it is also used in Ireland, the United States and the Commonwealth, and has been adopted by organizations around the world.
Chartered status originates from royal charters issued to professional bodies in the UK by the British Monarch, although such is the prestige and credibility of a chartered designation that some non-UK organisations have taken to issuing chartered designations without Royal or Parliamentary approval. In the UK, chartered titles may still only be awarded by institutions that have been incorporated under royal charter, with the permission of the Privy Council. [2] The standards for chartered titles in the UK are set between the professional bodies and relevant government departments, and cannot be changed without government permission. [3] Many chartered statuses in the UK and Ireland are also regulated professional titles under European professional qualification directives. [4]
Chartered status is generally considered a terminal qualification in a particular profession, in some fields professional bodies also offer lower level qualifications, such as Incorporated Engineer (IEng), Engineering Technician (EngTech) or Registered Scientist (RSci). It should not be confused on this point with the senior membership grade of Fellow in many professional institutes and learned societies, which is usually a measure of achievement and/or standing in a profession rather than a professional qualification based on assessment of competencies. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Chartered status is a form of accreditation, with there being a grant of a protected title but no requirement to be chartered in order to practice a profession (making it distinct from licensing). [9] In the UK and other countries that follow its model, the professional bodies overseeing chartered statuses have a duty to act in the public interest, rather than in the interests of their members, ensuring that chartered professionals must meet ethical standards of behaviour. [10] [11] As a status, rather than simply a qualification, a chartered title may be removed for failure to adhere to codes of conduct, or lost through non-renewal. Someone who has lost the status may no longer describe themselves as chartered. [12] [13]
Many chartered statuses require initial academic preparation, normally to bachelor's level but sometimes to master's level (or equivalent experience) in engineering and scientific fields where an integrated master's degree is the standard first degree. [note 1] After completion of academic training, it is normal to have to complete Initial Professional Development (IPD), which may include professional courses and examinations, to gain the competencies necessary for chartered status. Many chartered statuses also have a requirement that holders undertake Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to maintain and update their competencies, with some requiring evidence of CPD at regular intervals to renew the status. [6] [7] [8] [16] [17] In the UK, the Privy Council has stated that its policy is "that the criteria for individual Chartered Status should be broadly similar across the professions". [18] They also caution that chartered designations used without approval by the Queen in Council or the Privy Council "are not recognised by the UK Government and no assurance can be given that such designations meet the same high standards as authorised designations". [19]
The full title used differs from profession to profession and is normally of the form "Chartered <profession name>", where <profession name> is replaced by the name of the profession (e.g. Engineer or Accountant), sometimes with qualifiers to differentiate it from a similar title issued by another body (e.g. Marine Engineer or Management Accountant).
In the UK, chartered professional titles may only be trademarked if issued by a body holding a royal charter and which has permission under its charter to grant that title. Chartered professional titles are normally only permitted to be registered as collective trade marks. Guidance provided by the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office is that the use of the word "chartered" in a trademark by a non-chartered organisation "would mislead the public into believing that the association and its members have chartered status." [20] [21]
In the US, "chartered" is considered a descriptive term, thus trademarks using "chartered" along with a descriptive title for the profession may only be registered on the principal register if they can be demonstrated to have acquired distinctiveness through exclusive usage in trade for at least five years. [22] [23] Alternatively, they may be registered on the supplemental register.
The two best known chartered statuses are probably Chartered Engineer and Chartered Accountant, along with their derivatives. [24] Examples of their use outside of the UK include Chartered Engineer (CEng) in Ireland (granted in 1969 by the Oireachtas), [25] India [26] and Singapore; [27] Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) in Australia [28] and New Zealand (under the Chartered Professional Engineers of New Zealand Act 2002); [29] ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineer (ACPE) in participating ASEAN member states by the ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineer Coordinating Committee; [30] Chartered Accountant in Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa and Zambia; [31] and Chartered Professional Accountant in Canada. [32] Chartered Engineer (or a derivative) is also used in the official translation of titles from Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Iceland and Slovakia, while Chartered Accountant (or a derivative) is used in the official translation of titles from Austria, France, Hungary, Iceland, and Romania. [33]
In the US Chartered qualifications are offered by private education providers such as The American College of Financial Services and the Global Academy of Finance & Management (formerly the American Academy of Financial Management). Unlike chartered qualifications in most countries, these are not issued under a royal/government charter or legislation. The UK Intellectual Property Office refused a trademark application for the US Chartered Financial Analyst qualification on the grounds that it was not granted by a body with a royal charter and therefore had the potential to be deceptive. [34]
While the concept of royal charters dates back to the eleventh century, the idea of someone being a chartered professional only dates to the 19th century. The first chartered professionals were accountants in Scotland. The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh (now part of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland) was founded in 1853 and the title Chartered Accountant was in use by 1855. [35] [36] The title spread to England and Wales with the granting of a charter to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 1880 [37] and to Ireland with the chartering of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland in 1888. [38]
The next professionals to adopt the title were Chartered Surveyors in 1903 [39] and Chartered Directors in 1906. [40] These were followed between the wars by Chartered Civil Engineers (1923), [41] Chartered Electrical Engineers (1924), [42] Chartered Architects (1924) [43] Chartered Textile Technologists (1925) [44] and Chartered Mechanical Engineers (1930). [42] Coverage of the grant to the Institution of Civil Engineers made it clear that the title Chartered Civil Engineer was intended to act as a form of occupational closure:
While the unregulated use of the appellation "Civil Engineer" has deprived that title of professional significance, the designation of corporate membership of the Institution ("M.Inst.C.E." or "Assoc. M.Inst.C.E.") is recognised as an authoritative mark of professional competence. Nevertheless, the mere designation of membership of a Society has not, in recent years, been found to convey that definite idea of professional status to which the public is accustomed. The introduction of the title "Chartered Civil Engineer" therefore marks an important stage in the long history of the Institution.
— "Institution of Civil Engineers" . The Yorkshire Post. 2 January 1924. Retrieved 26 June 2016– via British Newspaper Archive.
In the Commonwealth, the title Chartered Accountant was adopted by Acts of Parliament in Canada in 1902 and in South Africa in 1927. It spread to Australia in 1928 with the granting of a royal charter to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (now part of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand). [45] The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India was established by Act of Parliament in 1949 and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan by Act of Parliament in 1961. [46] [47]
Development in the US began in 1927 with the establishment of the American College of Life Underwriters (now The American College of Financial Services) offering the Chartered Life Underwriter designation. [48] This marked not only the first use of a chartered title in the US but also the first use without government permission by either Charter or Act of Parliament. This was a sharp contrast to the situation in the Commonwealth, where accountants in South Africa and Australia had been engaged in a decades-long struggle to gain the right to use a chartered title that came to fruition at about the same time. [49] The CLU was followed, after many years of preparatory work, by the incorporation of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts (now the CFA Institute) in 1962 and the creation of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1963. [50]
With the Engineering profession in the UK fractured into many different professional institutions, the 13 chartered engineering institutions formed the Engineering Institutes Joint Council in 1962, which was chartered as the Council of Engineering Institutions in 1965 [51] and introduced the title of Chartered Engineer with the designatory letters CEng. [42] This marked the introduction of separate post-nominals for chartered status, which had previously been (and still is in many institutions) marked by the same post-nominals as membership. The CEng spread to Ireland a few years later in 1969. [25] Following the introduction of the CEng, many scientific professional bodies also gained the right to award chartered status, such as Chartered Chemist (1975), [52] Chartered Biologist (1979), [53] Chartered Physicist (1985) [54] and Chartered Geologist (1990). [55] This expansion was driven less by occupational closure than a desire to demonstrate professional equality with the engineers. [54]
When the European Communities (Recognition of Professional Qualifications) Regulations were introduced in the UK in 1991, they featured 40 chartered statuses, including five forms of Chartered Surveyor from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Chartered Accountants from three different bodies, and two titles from the Chartered Insurance Institute. [56] The most recent version of the regulations, from 2015, lists 71 chartered statuses, now including 20 varieties of Chartered Surveyor. [57] The UK Privy Council list includes (as of November 2018) 107 titles, including 20 variants on Chartered Surveyor, and is noted as not being exhaustive. [58]
The 21st century has seen moves to increase professionalism. The Chartered Physicist status, for example, has, since 2001, required a master's degree to fulfill the academic preparation and is no longer awarded automatically to all corporate members of the Institute of Physics, [59] and since 2012 has required evidence of CPD to be presented to renew the status every 3 years. [60] Similarly Chartered Engineers in the UK have needed a master's degree since 2012, and in Ireland since 2013. [61] The Chartered Scientist title, introduced in 2004, required a master's degree and annual re-validation through evidence of CPD from the start. [7]
Not an exhaustive list:
An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant or Certified Public Accountant, or Registered Public Accountant. Such professionals are granted certain responsibilities by statute, such as the ability to certify an organization's financial statements, and may be held liable for professional misconduct. Non-qualified accountants may be employed by a qualified accountant, or may work independently without statutory privileges and obligations.
Professional qualifications in the United Kingdom are titles or awards granted by professional bodies. Many British professional qualifications were subject to the European directives on professional qualifications and are covered by amended versions of those regulations as enacted in British law. Most, but not all, professional qualifications are 'Chartered' qualifications, and follow on from having been admitted to a degree. The term "professional qualification" can also be used to refer to higher-level vocational qualifications in "professional" roles.
Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, post-nominal titles, designatory letters or simply post-nominals, are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that the individual holds a position, an academic degree, accreditation, an office, a military decoration, or honour, or is a member of a religious institute or fraternity. An individual may use several different sets of post-nominal letters, but in some contexts it may be customary to limit the number of sets to one or just a few. The order in which post-nominals are listed after a name is based on rules of precedence and what is appropriate for a given situation. Post-nominal letters are one of the main types of name suffix. In contrast, pre-nominal letters precede the name rather than following it, such as addressing a physician or professor as "Dr. Smith".
The British Computer Society (BCS), branded BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, since 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in information technology (IT), computing, software engineering and computer science, both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Founded in 1957, BCS has played an important role in educating and nurturing IT professionals, computer scientists, software engineers, computer engineers, upholding the profession, accrediting chartered IT professional status, and creating a global community active in promoting and furthering the field and practice of computing.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) is the world's first professional body of Chartered Accountants (CAs). It is a regulator, educator, influencer and thought leader.
Chartered accountants were the first accountants to form a professional accounting body, initially established in Scotland in 1854. The Edinburgh Society of Accountants (1854), the Glasgow Institute of Accountants and Actuaries (1854) and the Aberdeen Society of Accountants (1867) were each granted a royal charter almost from their inception. The title is an internationally recognised professional designation; the certified public accountant designation is generally equivalent to it. Women were able to become chartered accountants only following the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 after which, in 1920, Mary Harris Smith was recognised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and became the first woman chartered accountant in the world.
Founded in 1904, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants(ACCA) is the global professional accounting body offering the Chartered Certified Accountant qualification (ACCA). It has 240,952 members and 541,930 future members worldwide. ACCA's headquarters are in London with principal administrative office in Glasgow. ACCA works through a network of over 110 offices and centres in 51 countries - with 346 Approved Learning Partners (ALP) and more than 7,600 Approved Employers worldwide, who provide employee development.
The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) is a professional body representing the transport and logistics industries worldwide. It is a membership-based organisation with over 30,000 members in over 30 countries. This international body is also known as CILT International to distinguish it from the national councils, sections and branches.
The Engineering Council is the UK's regulatory authority for registration of Chartered and Incorporated engineers and engineering technician. The Engineering Council holds the national registers of over 228,000 Engineering Technicians (EngTech), Incorporated Engineers (IEng), Chartered Engineers (CEng) and Information and Communications Technology Technicians (ICTTech). The Engineering Council is also responsible for establishing and upholding globally acknowledged benchmarks of professional competence and ethical conduct, which govern the award and retention of these titles. This guarantees that employers, government bodies, and the broader society, both within the UK and abroad, can place their trust in the expertise, experience, and dedication of engineers and technicians who are professionally registered with the Engineering Council.
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) is a UK based organisation for accountants who work in the public sector, accounting firms and other professional bodies where management of public funds are required. CIPFA are the only UK professional accountancy organisation who are dedicated to public financial management and they currently have approximately 14,000 members. They offer qualifications including a professional qualification for public sector accountants as well as a postgraduate diploma for people already working in management.
British qualified accountants are full voting members of United Kingdom professional bodies that evaluate individual experience and test competencies for accountants.
A professional degree, formerly known in the US as a first professional degree, is a degree that prepares someone to work in a particular profession, practice, or industry sector often meeting the academic requirements for licensure or accreditation. Professional degrees may be either graduate or undergraduate entry, depending on the profession concerned and the country, and may be classified as bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degrees. For a variety of reasons, professional degrees may bear the name of a different level of qualification from their classification in qualifications, e.g., some UK professional degrees are named bachelor's but are at master's level, while some Australian and Canadian professional degrees have the name "doctor" but are classified as master's or bachelor's degrees.
The Chartered Financial Planner is a qualification for professional financial planners and financial advisers awarded by the Chartered Insurance Institute.
In the United Kingdom, a Chartered Engineer (CEng) is an engineer registered with the UK's regulatory body for the engineering profession, the Engineering Council. Chartered Engineers are master's degree qualified or can demonstrate equivalent work-based learning and have gained the appropriate professional competencies through education and working experience. Demonstration of competence is defined in the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence, assessed through professional review of academic qualifications and professional development. Formal, non-formal and informal learning can be assessed. The title Chartered Engineer is protected in the UK under law by means of the Engineering Council’s Royal Charter and Bye-laws. As of 2019 there are approximately 180,000 engineers registered as a Chartered Engineer. Chartered Engineers are registered through Professional Engineering Institutions (PEIs) licensed by the Engineering Council which are relevant to their industry or specialism.
Chartered Surveyor is the description of Professional Members and Fellows of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) entitled to use the designation in the (British) Commonwealth of Nations and Ireland. Chartered originates from the Royal Charter granted to the world's first professional body of surveyors. Chartered Surveyors are entitled to use "MRICS" or "FRICS" after their names as appropriate.
The Association of International Accountants (AIA) is a professional accountancy body. It was founded in the UK in 1928 and since that date has promoted the concept of ‘international accounting’ to create a global network of accountants in over 85 countries worldwide.
The Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors or CICES is a professional association in the field of civil engineering surveying, headquartered in the United Kingdom. CICES members consist mainly of commercial managers, quantity surveyors, and geospatial engineers working and studying within civil engineering surveying. The institution began in 1969 as the Association of Surveyors in Civil Engineering, became a registered educational charity in 1992, and received a royal charter in 2009. The institution advocates for engineering projects and education.
Chartered Professional Accountant is the professional designation which united the three Canadian accounting designations that previously existed:
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ignored (help)When will there be a 'chartered archaeologist'? Being granted the powers to award chartered status to individual archaeologists is a separate process and would need to be agreed by the Privy Council by means of an amendment to the Charter.
These bodies function simultaneously as professional associations and as authorities appointed by the Government to award designatory letters and professional titles to those of its members which meet the specified standard of education and training. An important point to note is that this standard is set in conjunction with the relevant Government Departments and may not be changed without their agreement. This is the essential way in which these Chartered bodies differ from an ordinary professional association, and the feature of their constitution from which they derive their status as competent authorities for the professional titles and designatory letters listed in the implementing regulations.(Quote from 1999 letter from the Department of Trade and Industry)
The UK also operates a system that allows some professions to use the 'Chartered' title. The awarding of such titles to a professional is a form of accreditation. The title is generally awarded by a professional body that is empowered to do so by a royal charter. There are a wide range of professions that have access to the title such as Chartered Accountants, Chartered Surveyors and Chartered Waste Managers. Crucially, the use of the title, and accreditation more generally, does not prohibit an individual without accreditation or the title from practising the profession.[ permanent dead link ]
Unlike a trade body, which represents the interests of its members, a chartered body is bound to protect the public interest above that of its members. Chartered status bestows a requirement to act in the public interest.
Across the professional landscape, from accountants to civil engineers, and of course through to insurance brokers, insurers, insurance practitioners and financial planners, Chartered status stands proud as an indicator of the highest standards of learning and ethical behaviour
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7. Every person who at the twenty-eighth day of February 2001 was a Corporate Member of the Institute shall be entitled to use the title Chartered Physicist and the abbreviation CPhys according to regulations prescribed by the Council. Every person admitted to any of the corporate classes of membership after the twenty-eighth day of February 2001 who shall:
7.1 have been educated as a physicist and have obtained an Integrated Masters degree recognised by the Council for the purpose of this Clause of this Bylaw and have had experience in responsible work including a structured training course which demands a knowledge of physics or its applications as shall satisfy the Council
or
7.2 have attained professional competence to an equivalent standard demonstrated through a combination of academic qualification, training and experience as shall satisfy the Council
shall be entitled to use the title 'Chartered Physicist' and the abbreviation CPhys according to regulations prescribed by the Council.
anyone who gains Chartered Physicist from 2012 onwards has to revalidate their right to remain a CPhys every three years by submitting an up-to-date CV and CPD record.
Subject to regulations, Fellows, Members and Associates may use the description "Chartered Structural Engineer", Associate-Members may use the description "Incorporated Structural Engineer", and Technician members may use the description "Technician Member of the Institution of Structural Engineers".