Editing Profession (section)

==Regulation==
{{Sources|date=January 2024}}
Regulatory organisations are typically charged with overseeing a defined industry. Usually they will have two general tasks:

# creating, reviewing and amending standards expected of individuals and organisations within the industry.<ref>{{Cite web |last=OECD |date=2001 |title=Good Governance And Regulatory Management |url=https://www.oecd.org/governance/regulatory-policy/2724495.pdf |access-date=2023-11-06 |website=Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development}}</ref>
# Intervening when there is a reasonable suspicion that a regulated individual or organisation [[Professional conduct|may not be complying]] with its obligations.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) |title="They set standards, hold a register, quality assure education and investigate complaints." |url=https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work-with-regulators/find-a-regulator/health-care-professions-council |access-date=2023-11-06}}</ref>

Originally, any regulation of the professions was [[Self-regulatory organization|self-regulation]] through bodies such as the [[College of Physicians]] or the [[Inns of Court]]. With the growing role of government, [[Statutory body|statutory bodies]] have increasingly taken on this role, their members being appointed either by the profession or (increasingly) by the government. Proposals for the introduction or enhancement of statutory regulation may be welcomed by a profession as protecting clients and enhancing its quality and reputation, or as restricting access to the profession and hence enabling higher fees to be charged. It may be resisted as limiting the members' freedom to innovate or to practice as in their professional judgement they consider best.

An example was in 2008, when the British government proposed wide statutory regulation of psychologists. The inspiration for the change was a number of problems in the [[psychotherapy]] field, but there are various kinds of psychologists including many who have no clinical role, and where the case for regulation was not so clear. [[Industrial and organizational psychology|Work psychology]] brought especial disagreement, with the [[British Psychological Society]] favoring statutory regulation of "occupational psychologists" and the Association of Business Psychologists resisting the statutory regulation of "business psychologists" – descriptions of professional activity which it may not be easy to distinguish.

Besides regulating access to a profession, professional bodies may set [[Test (assessment)|examination]]s of competence and enforce adherence to an [[ethical code]]. There may be several such bodies for one profession in a single country, an example being the [[British qualified accountants|accountancy bodies]] of the [[United Kingdom]] ([[Association of Chartered Certified Accountants|ACCA]], [[Chartered Accountants Ireland|CAI]], [[Chartered Institute of Management Accountants|CIMA]], [[Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy|CIPFA]], [[Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales|ICAEW]] and [[Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland|ICAS]]), all of which have been given a [[Royal Charter]], although their members are not necessarily considered to hold equivalent qualifications, and which operate alongside further bodies ([[Association of Authorised Public Accountants|AAPA]], [[Institute of Financial Accountants|IFA]], [[Certified Public Accountants Association|CPAA]]). Another example of a regulatory body that governs a profession is the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union, which governs the conduct, rights, obligations, and duties of salaried teachers working in educational institutions in Hong Kong.

The [[engineering]] profession is highly regulated in some countries (Canada and the United States) with a strict licensing system for [[Professional Engineer]] that controls the practice but not in others (UK) where titles and qualifications are regulated [[Chartered Engineer]] but the practice is not regulated.

Typically, individuals are required by law to be qualified by a local professional body before they are permitted to practice in that profession. However, in some countries, individuals may not be required by law to be qualified by such a professional body in order to practice, as is the case for accountancy in the [[United Kingdom]] (except for auditing and insolvency work which legally require qualification by a professional body). In such cases, qualification by the professional bodies is effectively still considered a prerequisite to practice as most employers and clients stipulate that the individual hold such qualifications before hiring their services. For example, in order to become a fully qualified teaching professional in Hong Kong working in a state or government-funded school, one needs to have successfully completed a [[Postgraduate Diploma in Education]] ("PGDE") or a bachelor's degree in [[Education]] ("BEd") at an approved tertiary educational institution or university. This requirement is set out by the Educational Department Bureau of Hong Kong, which is the governmental department that governs the Hong Kong education sector.