PFS reveals budget wishlist

The professional body flagged that under the current scheme the lifetime allowance taper is a huge barrier for senior professionals such as doctors and head teachers, under both defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes.

The Personal Finance Society is calling for the chancellor to either remove the lifetime limit or at the very least increase the limits, to ensure people aren’t punished for saving and end the trend of senior professionals retiring early to avoid tax penalties on their hard earned retirement funds.

The professional body with more than 40,000 members is also urging the government to undertake a root and branch review of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to create a fairer and more sustainable system of collecting levies linked to better public financial awareness, engagement and trust.

The Personal Finance Society has offered a potential solution that it believes would deliver a sustainable financial education and compensation strategy, improve consumer confidence to engage in their financial wellbeing and reduce financial uncertainty for financial advisers currently facing soaring professional indemnity insurance premiums and increasing levy costs.

The Personal Finance Society needs government and regulatory support to create the necessary legislation to bring about change to the way consumer compensation is funded which is intrinsically linked with public confidence and trust in the sector more widely.

To attract the next generation of financial advisers, the Personal Finance Society is also calling on the government to reform the use and scope of the apprenticeships levy, by including resit costs and professional qualifications under the scheme.

Keith Richards, chief executive of the Personal Finance Society, said: “The points we set out here, highlight areas in which there is huge potential for improvement to conditions, so that customers, particularly the most vulnerable, can receive best possible outcomes.

“With so much innovative activity ongoing already across the profession, we simply ask the government to support our profession in unlocking our potential for the benefit of our regions, our communities and for the public.”

ENDS