Skills council gets licence back and calls for IFAs to get involved
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The Financial Services Skills Council is calling on advisers to engage with the newly licensed body and offer views on how it can help IFAs.
The FSSC was relicensed by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills last week after being denied a licence by the Government last May when Skills Secretary John Denham said the body “did not meet the standard required”.
It conducted an internal strategic review, led by Simon Ellis, and made its submission for relicensing last September.
The FSSC is now setting up sector committees to represent eight market sectors, including financial planning and advice. It will publish its final standards for the RDR-compliant QCF level four qualification imminently.
Interim chief executive Liz Field says: “Our new strategy is to have a more sectoral approach and part of that is to have some dedicated sector committees.
“We are in the process of speaking to various key stakeholders and employers to get those set up and I hope to finalise them in the next month.”
Field admits the FSSC has struggles to fully engage with the IFA market. She says: “Getting to IFAs, and particularly small firms, is very difficult. We want to tell them what we do and see how we can help them further.
“IFAs should get involved with our employer forums, give us ideas about how we can help, come to our workshops and other events and give us input.”
Tower Hill Associates director John Lang welcomes the skills council’s drive to engage with advisers.
He says: “It is very hard to be anything other than positive about the FSSC’s efforts to engage with IFAs. The more bodies we have helping IFAs gain higher qualifications and improve the professionalism of the sector the better.”
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