APC: training

26 January 2010

How does a busy manager devise and implement a successful structured training agreement to take an APC candidate to final assessment? Alan Melvin explains

---

In my role as RICS Training Adviser for Scotland, I meet a lot of members who are working hard to follow the APC procedures and ensure that the next generation of chartered surveyors reaches the required level of competence. The published APC guides are very comprehensive, but RICS asked regional training advisors (RTAs) to be available to provide back-up advice to individual members. Some RTAs also give advice directly to candidates. Welcome as this support is, it does not mean managers can delegate their responsibility to give candidates relevant experience and assess their progress systematically towards final assessment.

The APC is no longer based on the principle that you were bound to 'get good at it' if you did it for long enough

When RICS devised the current APC procedures, it started by capturing good management practice and sharing this with members. The APC is no longer based on the principle that you were bound to 'get good at it' if you did it for long enough (that's what the old Test of Professional Competence diary was for), nor is it based on the principle that candidates would be tested in an exam setting. The APC relies on the judgement of the members, and it is only when you are satisfied that your candidate is 'competent' (in accordance with definitions written by practitioners) that RICS will carry out a final assessment to confirm your professional judgement. Here is a list of tips to help you manage your trainee.

1. Structured training is a management procedure for you and your trainee. Trainees should 'manage' their managers, in the sense that they should take responsibility for their own training, and you rely on them to brief you on the current procedural requirements. It is up to them to remind you to hold quarterly review meetings and maintain elements of the paperwork.
   But, although the candidate might tell you what specific experience is required, only you can arrange it. The candidate might have an opinion about the requirements of a particular competency, but it is your interpretation of the guides that holds sway. Similarly, the candidate might believe that he/she is ready for final assessment, but only you can certify competence. In short, you should take all the decisions about competency selection, relevant experience, timing and progress before releasing your candidate for final assessment.
2. Your counsellor (the senior manager in the organisation, representing both the organisation and RICS) should advise you, as well as your candidate. Together, you select the pathway and the relevant achievable competencies. Make sure the counsellor sets the standards and confirms your decisions, thus protecting the reputation of your firm.
3. Before you start, assess the candidate and devise a strategy and programme (the structured training agreement, or STA) to get them to the goal. How much do they know? What have they done? They don't know all they need to know (neither do you, but that's what CPD is for). Depending on their academic experience and course content, they may not have any relevant experience, but the APC accepts this when it talks about 'turning theory into practice'.
4. Give the candidate credit for previous experience - if they can convince you they are competent. Everyone has gaps in their competence, but the 'graduate route 2' and 'graduate route 3' options allow you to shorten the training period if it is feasible to do so.
5. When you are drawing up the STA, bear in mind that not all competencies can be achieved in parallel, but everything must be achieved prior to submission, which is followed by the interview.
6. The STA is a declaration of intent and a statement of expectations. It tells RICS that you have the will, the means and the intention to manage the training programme in accordance with RICS procedures.
7. But, like any project plan, the training programme will need to be adjusted as you go along. That's one of the considerations for quarterly review.
8. It's only a training programme if it has specific target dates and milestones and it relates to a specific candidate (who may already have some competence). So don't rely on a generic version.
9. It's all in the competency definitions. The Pathway Guide only confirms what you knew already. It was written by practitioners to put competencies in context.
10. Most competencies are written in the plural. For instance, you can't sign a trainee off at 'Level 2 Valuations' if they have only used one valuation method for one purpose.

Quarterly reviews

In regular progress meetings, trainees provide managers with copies of their work for comment and (hopefully) approval. Managers ask questions about how the work was done, and perhaps ask to see workings or records of site visits or meetings. Quarterly reviews follow the same format, but have a very specific purpose. Your candidate should bring along a diary and a log book and, to make your job easier, a report on what he/she has done since the last review. This report provides you with written evidence to back up the numbers in the log book, but it also forms the basis for the submission the candidate will eventually make to RICS at final assessment.

Quarterly reviews remove the need for a formal interim submission, as you are reviewing progress regularly and revising your training proposals accordingly, without having to wait for the interim submission to record this.

Whatever the expectations of the competency plan at this stage, you should be looking for evidence that the candidate has gained the relevant experience or reached the required competency level. If you have been unable to provide the right experience, you can discuss ways of addressing this in future and revise the plan accordingly. Perhaps your candidate has had experience you had not foreseen. Does this demonstrate a different competency? If so, you can adjust the forward plan.

You might find that the candidate has recorded experience against the wrong competency. A property valuation for rating purposes could be logged as 'T052 - Local Taxation' or 'T083 - Valuation'. You decide which is appropriate.

Apart from discussing the candidate's experience, you must also consistently test Level 1 knowledge. You are probably doing this anyway, but it must be done in a structured way in relation to the specific requirements of the individual competencies (see www.rics.org/pathway). There is a temptation to think 'Level 1 was signed off ages ago, I don't need to test it further', but this is an area where many candidates fall down because they were not properly tested prior to final assessment. You can give your candidate advice about what to read, or what CPD events to attend. You could also ask them to present on a topic to a future staff meeting.

Alan Melvin is the RICS Training Adviser in Scotland. He is also a final assessment auditor and manages an RICS-accredited postgraduate course at Edinburgh's largest RICS partner university

Need advice?

• Managers/employers needing help with the APC process are supported by the RTAs, members of RICS who are professional trainers working part time to guide employers through the process of drawing up STAs. APC candidates looking for assistance can contact the APC Doctors, who are volunteers in particular specialisms of surveying appointed by the RTAs.
• Downloadable lists and contact details of both RTAs and APC Doctors are available from the comprehensive 'APC support' section of the RICS website
• Supervisors' and Counsellors' Guide to the APC by Christina Hirst