Overheard: What advisers really think about prof bodies

While the headline acts draw the polite crowds at the Institute of Financial Planning's conference, the truth comes out in the Celtic Manor bar and at the Jewel Balti curry house on Chepstow road, Newport.

The Institute of Financial Planning's 25th anniversary conference had the air of a financial services variety show.

Divas and hams abounded; there was investor behaviour guru Nick Murray, whose own whims according to his website include a refusal to fly below first class or speak while waiting staff lay plates.

Elsewhere, Lifesearch CEO Tom Baigrie spoofed an auctioneer to argue the foolishness of investing in life companies. A Shirley Bassey impersonator, and, well, a financial services variety show were also thrown in.

But while the headline acts draw the polite crowds, the truth comes out in the bar of the Celtic Manor hotel, and, on Monday night, at the Jewel Balti curry house on Chepstow road, Newport.

Between the jalfrezi one night and the gins another, veteran IFP members moaned some of the presentations had been underpitched.

"We're financial planners, we already know advice is not about pushing products," said one 17 year-long IFP member. Others complained of deja vu. "Strategic Coach's Dan Sullivan? I've heard it all before," was a common response.

But real criticism was reserved for the Personal Finance Society and the Chartered Insurance Institute, and far from being hollow rivalry from the other team, the most heartfelt complaints came from individuals who are also paid up members of the PFS.

A compliance officer fumed that a CII telephone support staff had repeatedly assured her she had achieved chartered status, when in fact she was ten points short. "I swore I'd jack it in after that," she said. She didn't, but her anger was palpable.

Old arguments about the CII being an exam-setting money spinner mingled with genuine personal disappointment at the emptiness of learning forced by exams which, it was said, demanded nothing more cerebral than parrot-fashion regurgitation of facts.

There was praise for the CII's gap-fill tool, but it was drowned out by accusations the organisation too often catered too much to the least progressive factions within the adviser community.

The focus on the insurance sector was also cited as a problem. One adviser gave a recent example: "The CII sent all its members this letter saying they had got this big insert in a national newspaper promoting chartered status. But when they sent us the brochure it was all about general insurerance advisers, not one word about IFAs."

But most of all I was shocked by the gap between the public image of chartered status and the reality for those individuals I spoke to who had it.

Several times I was told: "I pay the subscription and take the exam every year to stay chartered because it looks good on my business cards. But it's nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. I get nothing out of it."

By comparison, delegates spoke with familial warmth about the IFP's commitment to making them better professionals.

Asked to give a practical example of how the IFP achieved this, they struggled. From what they told me, it can probably be summed up as service.

"It's just the tone of the support, the way the exams make you think, the ongoing support you get after the qualifications, it is all about self-improvement," was one representative remark.

New PFS president Jon Everill has told me he knows the PFS must get rid of the idea it "only does exams".

He wants to bring advisers together around the themes of trust, ethics and professionalism, on the grounds that is the message consumers want to hear.

For many of the advisers I spoke to this week, to achieve his goal he must first apply those three pillars to the PFS.