CPI England and Wales: exam structure and preparation

About CPI England and Wales

The IPA's Certificate of Proficiency in Insolvency for England and Wales covers both corporate and personal insolvency under English law. The IPA describes it as an intermediate qualification and a basis for further study such as the Joint Insolvency Exam (JIE). It is the broadest of the four CPI and CPPI papers, and the only one with a second sitting each year.

If you have not settled on CPI, CPPI or the jurisdiction, read CPI vs CPPI first.

Exam at a glance

• Paper: one three-hour, closed-book exam worth 100 marks, sat online on your own computer with remote invigilation.

• Part A: ten one-mark multiple-choice questions.

• Part B: five two-mark and five four-mark short-form questions.

• Parts C and D: two compulsory 15-mark computational or essay-style questions, then two more chosen from three.

• Ethics and regulation: regulation, ethics, SIPs and other guidance account for about 20% of the marks.

• Law examined: legislation and practice in force on 1 January of the exam year.

• Sittings: the IPA's CPI page lists June and November sittings for this paper.

Sources: the IPA's CPI page and the England and Wales syllabus it links.

What does CPI England and Wales test?

On the corporate side, the syllabus covers administration (including pre-pack sales and SIP 16), administrative receivership, members' and creditors' voluntary liquidation, compulsory liquidation, company and partnership voluntary arrangements and partnership administration orders, including limited liability partnerships. On the personal side, it covers bankruptcy, individual voluntary arrangements, debt relief orders, the debt respite scheme and the non-statutory options a debtor might consider.

Around both sit the office holder's working knowledge: remuneration, bonding, antecedent transactions, employees' claims, the Insolvency Services Account and returns to government. The legislation listed starts with the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016.

What makes CPI England and Wales challenging?

Breadth. You need corporate and personal procedures well enough to advise and calculate. A practitioner who handles liquidations every week can still be thin on bankruptcy and IVAs, and the reverse.

The written questions add a second challenge. Ninety marks come from answers you type, and a general explanation of a topic can still miss the specific advice, calculation or procedural step the requirement asked for.

A calculation the syllabus names

The syllabus asks you to compile a liquidation versus arrangement comparison statement. It answers one question for creditors: would they receive more under the proposed voluntary arrangement than in a liquidation?

Practise building it as two columns: estimated realisations under each outcome, the costs of each route, the amounts due to secured and preferential creditors and the prescribed part where relevant, and the resulting return to unsecured creditors in pence in the pound. Then write two sentences interpreting the result, including the assumptions it depends on. In the exam you type this into an answer box that supports tables but not spreadsheets, so practise laying it out by hand rather than in Excel.