Commenting on this policy adjustment, BILD Chair David Apparicio said, "The BILD has long been driven by the aspiration to see a career in L&D recognised as a genuine 'profession'. Today, the critical capability demanded of every organisation is the capacity to learn and change faster than the competition, to become a genuine 'learning organisation'. This makes the professionalising of learning a more urgent imperative than ever before.

The BILD believes that, as with all other recognised professions, L&D practitioners should be required to meet a common standard of professional practice evidenced by appropriate certification. Until recent years, this has not been possible to achieve, given the wide range of subjective certification schemes available. Membership of the BILD, therefore, as with other L&D Institutes, was open to applicants holding a disparate range of qualifications. This of course meant that the BILD post-nominal letters could not guarantee consistent and reliable professional practice.

With the advent of the Training Accreditation Programme in 1998, the seeds were planted for the genuine professionalising of an L&D career.  For the first time, objective assessable models (recognised by a Queen’s Award for Innovation) underpinned all L&D roles, enabling consistent standards of professional practice.

The Board of the BILD has observed first hand the widespread, employer-led adoption of TAP in recent years, with some 1,400 organisations across all strands of the private and public sectors now employing more than 25,000 certified L&D professionals.  We have concluded that this groundswell of commitment to best-practice standards now enables the Institute to progress its key objective of professionalising a career in L&D. By requiring all applicants for BILD membership from 01 October 2015 to hold a TAP certificate or diploma, the BILD post-nominal letters will become a guarantee of best practice."

Nick Mitchell, CEO of The Training Foundation commented, "This forward-thinking announcement demonstrates the BILD’s passionate commitment to truly making Learning & Development a genuine profession. The whole thirty-strong TAP team at The Training Foundation shares that passion. These are indeed exciting times for the whole training community, and I encourage all to join the BILD and help us achieve our common objective."