Now that the Christmas decorations are all put away and the time off over the holidays is starting to feel like a distant memory, CIAN has one more gift to brighten your January - a small number of free training courses!
CIAN runs training courses approximately at cost, but - as attendance for each course can be hard to predict - this is not an exact science and we have a small surplus in funds. The CIAN committee has decided part of this surplus should be spent furthering CIAN’s charitable objectives by offering a limited number of free places on CIAN training days for charity/not for profit internal auditors who would not otherwise be able to attend a training day. CIAN plans to offer these free places for training days which take place in 2020.
CIAN puts on two to three training courses each year, all in line with our aim to improve skills of internal auditors and the provision of internal audit in the third sector. We are lucky that the courses for us are relatively low cost to run, thanks to trainers generously agreeing to discounted rates, and partner organisations (usually Grant Thornton for training days) very kindly providing a training venue and lunch free of charge. We pass these cost savings on to our members, which is how we are able to offer these courses for a small fraction of the cost you would pay elsewhere.
Although our prices are very low, we know both anecdotally and from the annual bench-marking surveys that there are still some charities with zero training budget for internal audit, meaning that some of our members are unable to attend our courses because of cost. The free places are specifically for charity or not for profit internal auditors whose charities do not provide training budgets for their internal auditors.
The CIAN committee has determined the following conditions for applying for a free training day place:
the applicant should provide a one-page business case explaining how the subject matter of the training day will benefit internal audit at their charity;
the applicant must confirm that their charity has no training budget for its internal audit function or would otherwise be unable to attend if the course fee applies;
the applicant understands that any charity which has benefited from a free training day place will be unable to apply for another place that calendar year;
the applicant understands that the free places are limited, some applicants will not be offered a place and the CIAN committee’s decision is final; and
the applicant agrees to provide a short testimonial explaining how the training benefited their charity which CIAN may publish in full or in part on its website.
The first course we are offering a free place on is the 'Auditing Culture and Ethics' training on 13th March 2020. To apply for a free place, please email training@cian.org.uk with your business case (no more than one A4 page). All applications for a free place on this course must be submitted by 13th February.
We hope to hear from you soon if you will benefit from a free place on this course!
A bit more on CIAN's funds...
CIAN’s annual expenditure is kept low and usually isn't much more than the cost of trainers for our one day courses plus a little money to run CIAN’s website. It should be said, this low cost base would not be achievable without the support of our partners (Crowe, Sayer Vincent, Grant Thornton, BDO and Haysmacintyre) and Network Meeting speakers who present for for us free of charge, as well as our great CIAN Committee who organise all the events, training, bench-marking, website updates etc. in their own free time. Huge THANK YOU to all of them! With our low cost base, we do have a small and finite amount of surplus funds from years past, beyond the training funds we are allocating above. If you have a good idea for how CIAN could best spend funds in line with our mission, let us know at info@cian.org.uk