Notary CPE and Scottish Advocate CPD: What the Rules Actually Say

Two UK legal professions run mandatory continuing education that almost nobody writes about, and both are unusual in instructive ways. Notaries in England and Wales are governed by a formal scheme with published regulations, a defined accreditation process for course providers, and no public list of who has been accredited. Advocates in Scotland have an enforceable obligation whose governing regulations are referenced in the profession's own conduct guide but are not actually published anywhere.

If you administer compliance, buy training, or are considering either route, here is what the sources actually say — and, as importantly, what they do not.

Notaries: it is CPE, not CPD

The first thing to get right is the terminology. The notarial scheme is continuing professional education, and the governing instrument is the Notaries (Continuing Professional Education) Regulations 2021. Searching for notary CPD will take you to the wrong vocabulary and often to the wrong, superseded guidance.

The regulator is the Master of the Faculties, whose functions are exercised through the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Its jurisdiction originates in the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533 and was confirmed and enhanced by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and the Legal Services Act 2007. The Legal Services Board's register lists "Notaries — Master of the Faculties" as an approved regulator with no representative functions, approved for reserved instrument activities, probate activities, notarial activities and the administration of oaths.

The requirement is additive, not a single total

One credit point equals one hour. The structure stacks:

• 6 credit points in Notarial Practice — for any notary who practises
• plus 6 in Conveyancing — if the notary does conveyancing as a notary
• plus 6 in Probate Activities — if the notary does probate

These are cumulative requirements, not alternatives. A notary doing all three carries 18 points. And for each of the three, at least 3 credits must come from participation in an accredited activity — the Faculty Office summarises this as at least 50%.

There is also a mandatory anti-money laundering element: at least one credit point must be in AML and counter-terrorism financing applicable to the UK, under a 2022 order of the Master. A caution on this one — the Faculty Office's own AML annual report describes it as "one hour of additional annual AML training", while the order as described elsewhere places it within the existing requirement. The two readings differ, so confirm with the Faculty Office whether your position is 6 points including AML or 6 plus 1.

The CPE year runs 1 November to 31 October, and there is no carry-over between periods. The Master also has power, by order made before a period begins, to require points in a particular subject — which is how the AML element arrived.

Recording, and the deadline that actually binds

Notaries keep a record in a prescribed form and submit a copy to the Registrar on applying for a practising certificate, and on request. The Registrar may demand evidence.

The regulations set no separate CPE deadline. The operative deadline is the practising certificate application, and the certificate year aligns exactly with the CPE year: 1 November to 31 October. The application must be lodged no later than 1 November, and the rules require a copy of the CPE training record for the preceding year alongside the fee, the contingency fund contribution and insurance evidence. If that information is not provided, a practising certificate will not be issued.

Miss it entirely and the consequence is loss of the right to practise rather than a disciplinary charge: a notary who has not applied, or has not received a renewed certificate by 31 December, is no longer authorised to practise and is removed from the published list. Refusal is appealable within 14 days.

Worth being precise about what that is not. Practising without a valid certificate is an offence under section 14 of the Legal Services Act 2007 and is notarial misconduct. But the misconduct definition in the Notaries (Conduct and Discipline) Rules 2026, in force from 28 April 2026, does not itself name the CPE Regulations — so a CPE shortfall is not automatically misconduct, even though the practising consequence is severe. The Master can also waive the requirements in whole or in part, in writing, though no application form or criteria for waivers is published.

The Faculty Office does accredit course providers — and this is the commercially interesting part

Unlike the healthcare regulators, where no accreditation scheme exists at all, notarial CPE has a formal statutory accreditation process:

• A provider may apply for its own activity, or any person may apply in respect of someone else's activity — so a notary can get a third party's course accredited.
• The Master decides, and on success specifies the number of credit points awarded.
• Retrospective accreditation is possible in specific cases if applied for no later than six months after the event.
• Criteria: relevance to the basic or special requirement; written learning objectives; a written assessment, which may be a structured self-evaluation such as a questionnaire; and delivery either by attendance at a lecture or seminar, or at a distance with assessment by dissertation or written assessment.
• Only full attendance counts — partial attendance does not constitute completion — and providers must issue certificates stating the points awarded.
• The Master may withdraw accreditation by written notice.

The Faculty Office publishes a suggested application format and recommends using it. Two gaps are worth knowing before you plan around this. No accreditation fee is stated anywhere, and no submission address is published on the CPE page. And there is no public list of accredited providers or courses — the Faculty Office instead confirms on request whether an activity is accredited, and advises checking with the provider first. A 2010 document suggested a provider list might be maintained on the website; it never appeared.

That last point is a genuine friction in the market. A provider can be accredited and a notary still cannot verify it without asking.

One source to avoid: a CPE questions-and-answers document dated 20 April 2010 is still live on the Faculty Office site and remains the only narrative "how to apply" guidance. It relates to the superseded regime made under the 2009 practice rules and references a first CPE period running 2010 to 2012. Use the 2021 Regulations instead.

Scale, and the qualification route

There were 747 notaries on the roll at the end of the 2024-25 period, up from 742, and the Faculty Office describes itself as regulating around 750. Those are roll figures, not practising certificate holders, and no count of certificate holders is published. Fewer than 40 notaries deal with conveyancing and probate as notaries — which is why the additive 18-point requirement affects a small minority.

On qualification, one correction worth making because it is widely misstated: the professional stage is the Notarial Practice Course, run for the Faculty Office by University College London as a two-year distance learning course across three modules — Roman Law as an introduction to modern civil law systems, private international law, and notarial practice. Neither the Faculty Office nor UCL names a degree or diploma award, and UCL lists it among short courses. It is not a postgraduate diploma, despite being described as one in a great deal of secondary material.

Separately from CPE, newly admitted notaries sit under post-admission supervision for two years, or three if they do conveyancing or probate, with an approved continuing education course each year carrying a minimum of four hours of tuition, plus four-hour courses for conveyancing and probate where applicable. The Faculty Office consulted in October 2026 on extending in-person supervision for new probate and conveyancing notaries, with the main change not expected before at least mid-2027.

Scottish advocates: an enforceable duty whose rules are not published

The Faculty of Advocates regulates advocates under powers delegated by the Court of Session. Section 120 of the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 gives the Court responsibility for admitting and removing advocates and regulating their practice, conduct and discipline, exercisable through the Lord President or the Faculty — and section 121 means a Faculty rule has no effect unless the Lord President has approved it.

That position was formalised further by the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025, under which the Faculty is the regulator for advocates and is assigned to category 2, the designation for regulators whose membership is more specialist and smaller in number. The consequences are real: the Faculty must exercise its regulatory functions independently of its other functions, publish an annual report and send it to the Lord President, keep a register of regulated providers, have professional indemnity rules the Lord President agrees to, and submit to performance review.

What is confirmed about CPD

The obligation exists and has teeth. The Faculty's Guide to Professional Conduct states that the Faculty has a CPD programme, that it is the duty of an advocate to comply with its requirements as specified in regulations made from time to time, and that failure to do so may amount to professional misconduct.

Hours rather than points are the unit, and at least one named category exists: a Faculty event page records an accredited event as carrying one hour applicable to the Practice Development requirement. The Faculty told the Scottish Parliament in 2025 that it operates "enhanced" CPD requirements, including minimum specialist advocacy training in oral and written advocacy.

What is not published — and why no number appears here

The Guide's contents list an Appendix C containing the Faculty of Advocates Continuing Professional Development Regulations. That appendix is not readable in the published document, across multiple editions, and there is no CPD page anywhere on the Faculty's website.

So the following are all unverified from the regulator: the annual hours requirement, any mandatory categories beyond Practice Development, the CPD year dates, the recording and submission mechanism, the deadline, any waiver route, and compliance data.

There is one hours figure in circulation — a 2014 European e-justice factsheet, in German, stating at least 10 hours of approved CPD per calendar year with an annual declaration. It is twelve years old, it is not the regulator's own publication, and the Faculty has since told Parliament its requirements are "enhanced". Publishing it as current would be guessing. If you need the advocates' CPD requirement, obtain the regulations from the Faculty directly.

On provider accreditation the position is similar: the Faculty plainly does accredit events and assigns hours to them, but publishes no criteria, application route, fee, contact or list. A provider would need to approach the Faculty directly.

The contrast with Scottish solicitors

Solicitors in Scotland sit under an entirely different and fully published regime. The Law Society of Scotland requires a minimum of 20 hours a year, of which at least 15 must be verifiable, with a minimum of one hour of risk management CPD and up to five hours of private study. Solicitor advocates carry ten hours of mandatory solicitor advocate CPD counting toward the verifiable 15. The Society reviews a sample of at least 5% of solicitors each year.

Two professions, one jurisdiction, and one of them publishes its rules while the other does not.

What this means in practice

• Notaries: work out whether you are on 6, 12 or 18 points before anything else, and remember that at least half of each block must be accredited activity.
• Diarise your CPE against 31 October and your certificate application against 1 November — they are the same date boundary, which is easy to misjudge.
• Confirm with the Faculty Office whether your AML point sits inside or on top of your 6, because its own sources read differently.
• Ask the Faculty Office to confirm accreditation rather than relying on a provider's claim, since no public list exists.
• If you are a provider, the notarial accreditation route is real and worth pursuing — but budget for an undocumented process: no published fee, no published submission address, and no listing once approved.
• Advocates: do not rely on any published hours figure, including the 10 hours still circulating from a 2014 factsheet. Get the regulations from the Faculty.
• Do not transfer assumptions between the two. Notarial CPE and advocates' CPD share neither vocabulary, cycle, unit nor enforcement route.

For comparison across the rest of the legal profession, the regimes that are fully documented make better planning anchors — the Costs Lawyer Standards Board points scheme and the account-level obligations in the SRA Accounts Rules both publish their requirements in full, which is the exception rather than the rule at the smaller end of legal regulation.