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Professional Qualifications Act 2022

Contents

Overview of the Act

  1. The Professional Qualifications Act 2022 ("the Act") revokes the current EU-based system for recognising professional qualifications gained overseas and establishes a new approach based on regulator autonomy and delivering international agreements. It also helps aspiring professionals understand how to access professions.
  2. The Act contains provisions to:
    1. End the interim system for the recognition of professional qualifications that derives from the UK’s membership of the EU.
    2. Provide appropriate national authorities with the power to make regulations which facilitate the assessment of individuals with overseas qualifications or experience for the purposes of establishing if they should be allowed to practise a profession in the UK. These regulations must be necessary in order to enable demand to be met for the services of a regulated profession in the UK, or a part of the UK.
    3. Enable Government to implement international agreements or parts of international agreements, such as Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), that the UK strikes with partners so far as they relate to the recognition of professional qualifications.
    4. Enable appropriate national authorities to provide regulators with a consistent set of powers to enter into agreements with regulators overseas on the recognition of professional qualifications, where they do not have this power already.
    5. Provide for an Assistance Centre service for individuals who wish to practise in a regulated profession in the UK or overseas. The centre will function as a single point of information on the entry requirements of regulated professions in the UK.
    6. Require regulators of professions in all parts of the UK to publish information on the entry and practice requirements of their profession, including any requirements for remaining in that profession.
    7. Require regulators in the UK to provide certain information to counterpart regulators in other parts of the UK where an individual is or has been entitled to practise in a part of the UK, and is seeking entitlement to practise in another part of the UK.
    8. Require regulators in the UK to provide certain information to overseas regulators (with permission of the individual) where an individual is or has been entitled to practise that profession in the UK, or a part of the UK, and is seeking entitlement to practise overseas.
    9. Amend the Architects Act 1997 to allow a new recognition system for architects, alongside adjustments to the administration of the Architects Registration Board to support efficiency.
    10. Protect the autonomy of regulators in relation to regulations made under the powers in the Act that affect regulators’ existing powers. Regulations will not remove the ability of regulators to prevent an unfit individual from practising a profession, and cannot have a material adverse effect on the knowledge, skills or experience of individuals practising a profession.
    11. Require the appropriate national authority to consult relevant regulators ahead of making regulations under the powers in the Act that affect regulators’ existing powers.

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