If you are going to present a paper you may want to look into funding, your Sector Skills Council is Government Skills: http://www.government-skills.gov.uk/index.asp
They recognise HR in the form of Business, Administration and Law (I think, this isn't my sector) they have signed up to the skills pledge and are also the organisation who make grant payments for skills training. Bearing in mind the fact that Train to Gain funding has now been extended to NVQ 3 and second NVQ funding (your skills council's grant payment structure is here: http://www.skillsforlife-sw.org.uk/docs/TtG_Rates_Equivalent_0809.pdf ) they may well recognise some of the CIPD quals and pay employers grants for them or discretionary grants or be able to draw down T2G funding. You'll need to look through the website, maybe you would need to do one of their Awarding Body qualifications and get CIPD recognition (where there's a will there's a way.)
If in doubt contact the SSC and ask them what they can do for you, there must be some mechanism by which your branch can draw down funding (they probably already do for any NVQ training your branch do) SSC's exist to fund skills training and pay out grants to your sector, they want to give out money, it doesn't come from the MoD budget DT_Xtremez_15:
Edited: Having just looked through Government Skills' National Occupational Standards you could say they aren't very comprehensive........unless of course you want an NVQ in Parade Training! ENTO seem to have the HR market wrapped up and I suspect CIPD use their standards (CIPD is not a standard setting body): National Occupational Standards search for HR is here: http://www.ukstandards.org/Find_Occ...spx?NosFindID=5&search_string=human resources.
Regardless of this touching base with Government Skills as your SSC will inform you of funding options.
Cheers Chiefy, saves me a job.