23rd September 2010

RDR letter to send to MPs

IFA letter of the week

Hi all,

I've left the lawyers out of this. I'm up for spending a certain amount of time and money on the legal angle but you and I know that:

1. Litigation is always expensive;
2. Most IFAs won't pay a penny towards it or spend a minute of their time on it, but will very happily watch us flog ourselves to death;
3. Legal challenges are unlikely to succeed/

We must hammer the political angle and to be effective we need a compromise position. I've drafted a letter which I intend sending out to my mailing list. Just saying NO‚ to the RDR will get us nowhere; all politics involves compromise and I think this is a reasonable one. It lets the FSA save face and gets us most of what we want. Moving the qualifications deadline to 1/1/16 gives the older guys time to retire gracefully if they wish and increases the value of the businesses they want to sell. It also gives the rest of us a breathing space to make up our diploma points.

Can we all think about this reasonably please? I'm open to compromises and I hope all of you are. If all of us back this or something very like it then the chances are that we can get a few of the industry's big guns behind it also, after that even AIFA maybe.

I really think this is the only practical way forward. Looking back the weakness of our side's position is that we have never really had an alternative, so while there's been a lot to fight against, there's been nothing to fight for. As a result the FSA has been able to make us look negative. This way we can go forward with a positive position and we avoid the inherent weakness of arguing against higher qualifications in the long run.

I would value having your thoughts asap.

Yours Sincerely

Neil F Liversidge
Managing Director
West Riding Personal Financial Solutions

Adviser Letter of the Week