English Higher Education Institutions engaged in the continuing professional development of teachers have, until now, received annual funding amounting to £25 million from Central Government (allocated according to numbers of Teachers on courses). From September 1998 the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), acting on behalf of the Department for Education and Employment, will introduce a system based upon competitive bidding against a series of TTA determined criteria. For the first time, providers outside higher education have been invited to bid for what was previously higher education funding. Many view this as a paradigm shift in the nature of the relationship between the "centre" and providing institutions and as contributing further to the changes in the conceptualisation of the role of the teacher. The case has been put that this will lead to: -a loss of ability to address local needs -the weakening of the role of higher education in teachers' CPD to the point where specialist staff can no longer be retained -a strengthening of the trend to move both the initial training of teachers and their continuing professional development out of higher education -an increasing instrumentalism, with an emphasis on short, rather than long, term training needs -the further de-professionalisation of teachers. The authors have undertaken a survey of major English higher education institutions. They have identified significant anomalies in the outcomes of the initial bidding process which is likely to impact on policy. A number of specific concerns were identified which were followed up by interview. This paper presents the initial findings. It is intended to monitor development over a full academic year in order to evaluate both intended and unintended outcomes of the move to a 'market driven' model of CPD resourcing.