Masters of the Universe - McKinsey

Adair Turner expected to take over the helm at the Financial Services Authority? The FSA has had three previous Management Consultants from McKinsey, when will the government learn? Howard Davies wrote a book call the "Con trick", in it said he was always amazed when people would pay him to report on a successful business they were already running. John Tiner managed to get out before Northern Rock fell over, his friends in high places must have incredible influence, and now we have the prospect of someone who doesn't like criticism running something that shortly will be subjected to far more than it ever has before.

McKinsey truly are "Masters of the Universe", not..

[IFADU] Hunt Report

______________________________________________
From: IFADUgooglegroups.com On Behalf Of Dave Chaundy - The Grosvenor Consultancy
Sent: 22 May 2008 13:38
To: IFADUgooglegroups.com
Subject: [IFADU] Hunt Report

Further to my earlier post re Lord Hunt - I have now received a copy of a letter from Mark Bonham - Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, sent to my MP in response to a letter of mine to my MP about the RDR and Hunt Report.

As usual the letter contains no significant content other than the usual platitudes but I intend to copy Mr Bonham in on correspondence with Lord Hunt.

In that regard I attach a first draft of an email to Lord Hunt. I have intentionally limited comment to the 15 yr long stop and have concentrated upon retired IFAs in order to highlight the hardship caused. This is intended as an 'opener' for future discussion -- we shall have to wait to see if he is interested enough to ask for more information.

Meanwhile i am still happy to hear from any IFAs here who wish to have their thoughts and comments passed on to Lord Hunt. Or indeed any comments on the email reproduced below:

To: huntdparliament.uk
Cc: Richard BENYON
Subject: The Hunt Report on Financial Services regulation.

Dear Lord Hunt,

My MP, Mr Richard Benyon, has, I believe, spoken with you regarding some correspondence I have been having with him and he has kindly provided your email address so that I may contact you. Thank you for agreeing to hear the concerns of one small firm of IFAs.

I do not intend at this point to debate all of the issues contained in the Hunt Report. I accept that you will have given serious thought to your conclusions and thus are unlikely to be swayed at this late stage to change any of the contentious aspects of your report. I would however like to bring to your attention some of the human aspects of what, prime facie, would seem to be entirely reasonable conclusions on your part, but which can impact unfairly and inappropriately upon honest and genuine individuals.

For background information I have worked in the Financial Services sector all of my working life (now some 40 years). I have been an IFA for 15 years of which 13 years was as a Sole Trader. This latter fact is relevant to the most important aspect of client/IFA relationships i.e. that of mutual trust, and the failure of the FSA/FOS and the associated regulatory framework to understand the mindset of a firm or individual such as I.

Until recently I have never seen any need to shield my responsibilities to my clients behind a limited liability. I accepted that as a Sole Trader my entire net worth as a human being was my client's guarantee of probity. This gave me no cause for concern, as i knew in my heart that I acted at all times in the best interests of those clients, with no self-interest being permitted to pervert my advice or conclusions.

This was until an industry peer, whom I have known as a similarly motivated and trustworthy individual for many years, fell foul of the regulatory morass and found himself little more than a piece of 'collateral damage' drowning in the waves of the regulatory flood.

This individual was also a sole trader, now forcibly retired. A case brought by the FOS against him has been to County Court where he lost, and has been to appeal, where he also lost. It is likely to go to the final stages of the legal system and ultimately to the European Courts if necessary. The UK legal process must be exhausted before the unfairness of the Statutes can be tested in the Court of Human Rights at considerable expense to a retired practitioner.

I would be delighted to set out the full detail of what has happened to this man, who is now close to nervous collapse through no fault of his own, and through no proven failings of advice, or breaches of regulation, or even proven 'mis-selling'. The County Court Judge commented in his decision "where natural justice comes into this I have no idea but it is pursuant to Statute". This perhaps is not the place, however, to detail my friends sad story. Let us merely hope that he survives long enough, physically and mentally, to reach a final resolution and hopefully 'natural justice'. Suffice to say that his experiences led me to switch my own business to a Limited Liability company, hardly an improvement to the protection of my clients, but a necessary action for the protection of my family.

The above is only one amongst many cases where retired sole traders are being pilloried (I can provide chapter on verse on many such cases). I refer to this solely as an indication of the potential impact of denying to the IFA profession a Statutory protection which is afforded to every other business and individual in the UK. Ignoring the inherent injustice and unfairness of the FSA and FOS, which is undeniable in many respects, a 15 year long stop on complaints would go some way to enabling Sole Trader IFAs to retire with at least the prospect of some respite in his dotage.

Please bear in mind that the Rules and Regulations of the FSA and FOS are not routinely distributed to persons not currently regulated - they have therefore no way of knowing what impact changes to rules, sometimes retrospective in effect, will have upon their situation. They also have no way to deal with Pension Reviews, Endowment Reviews etc. because they are not made aware of the need to do so. Even if they were aware, is it reasonable to expect that an elderly person, possibly suffering from mental deterioration or Alzheimers at age 90+ should be able to negotiate the complexity of DISP rules etc?

Your reasons for maintaining this refusal of the statutory protection of a 15 year long stop to IFAs are based upon 'consumer protection' but ignores the genuine hardship it imposes on individuals. I would ask that you give some thought to the FSAs own current mantra of Fair Treatment - not just to customers but to all. Professional Indemnity Insurance (your suggested solution) is NOT easily obtainable for a non-authorised individual.

There are many other aspects of your report upon which i would wish to comment and am happy to do so, but I am restricting this already lengthy missive to the sole issue of the 15 year Long Stop. I will happily provide you with copious detail and numerous specific case histories of how the regulatory minefield has caused untold hardship and damage to many innocent victims in this industry.

If you are genuinely concerned to ensure a fair and just framework of regulation then I have no doubt that you will request more evidence from me of how it has failed to date. I will therefore end, and await your response.

Grosvenor Chaundy
The Grosvenor Consultancy

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Registered in England No 4395951. Registered Office 78A Chapel Street, Thatcham, Berks. RG18 4QN
‘The Grosvenor Consultancy’ is a trading style of Grosvenor Independent Financial Ltd, an appointed representative of The Whitechurch Network Ltd which is authorised & regulated by The Financial Services Authority

IMPORTANT - The contents of this e-mail message, including any attachments, are intended and authorised for the sole use of the person or entity to whom the e-mail is addressed. The information in this e-mail message, including any attachments, is confidential, and may be subject to legal privilege. Unauthorised use, dissemination, distribution, publication or copying of this communication is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail message in error please notify the sender (either by return of e-mail or by telephoning us on the relevant number shown below) as soon as possible and delete any copies and any attached documentation. This message is attributed to the sender and may not necessarily reflect the view of Grosvenor Independent Financial Limited.


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No virus found in this outgoing message.
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Terrorism

Are the Welsh nationalist extremists guilty of terrorism? Of inciting racial hatred even against born and bred Welsh people who choose to speak English?

Are Plaid Cymru supporters of such extremism?

Why don't they want to integrate with the rest of the planet?

There are a number of UK-based extremist groups motivated by domestic causes other than the Northern Ireland situation.
None of these poses a significant threat at the present time but several either historically had a limited terrorist capability or currently aspire to mount terrorist attacks against targets in the UK.
Some extremist groups also have a subversive agenda, seeking to undermine parliamentary democracy or the British economy.
At various times in the recent past, groups that have fallen into this category have included violent Scottish and Welsh nationalists, right- and left-wing extremists, animal rights extremists and other militant single-issue protestors.
For the most part these groups pose a threat to public order, but not to national security, and their activities are generally investigated by the police, not the Security Service.
In 2004, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) established the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU) (new window) as part of the national policing response to domestic extremism

Gwynedd elections - the ballot box tells Plaid Cymru what the people want

Subject: Letters page

Title "An education?"

Dear Editor

I hope that lessons will have been learned from the 2008 elections by those who lost touch with what the majority of the electorate wanted rather than what a few loud voices wished to impose upon on the rest of us, but I doubt it, they are far too entrenched. School closures was just the last straw in a series of calamities, education was and is a serious matter when there is little else our children can attain in this economic backwater created by many long years of increasingly unhinged Council 'policies'. The timing of Dafydd Iwan's call to have English taught as a second language was an example of the arrogance created by too many years in an apparently unassailable position within an oligarchy. The Dwyfor planning area appears to be a law unto itself because it is the only place in Wales where 'local occupancy restrictions' are imposed without just cause on carefully selected applications which are not for 'affordable homes', come to think of it, the Snowdonia National Park is also guilty of ignoring national guidance, EU law and UK legislation but it suffers from almost the same 'policies' plus the fact that the residents are second class citizens on their own land. The 'Tremadog Bay' area is so destitute that it attracts the lowest Local Housing Allowance in the whole of Wales, and most of the UK, some £30 per week less than neighbouring areas, why? Well, apparently it is because there is no work and the vast majority of houses for rent are Housing Association or Council properties which, when combined with the dearth of decent employment prospects, creates the largest 'ghetto' in the land. If you dig deep enough it is quite frightening to think that the 'Party of Wales' and a national park are responsible for so much misery in what was once considered to be a nationalist heartland by those people who had their heads in the sand.

Meirionnydd used to be an efficiently run area authority until it was merged with Gwynedd, decentralisation would be most welcome, so would the removal of planning controls from the SNPA which has a conflict of interest.

We sincerely hope that those who control the purse strings of Gwynedd County Council for the foreseeable future do indeed listen to what the people really want, unfortunately they have the mammoth task of unravelling the mess we find ourselves in today. They have our mandate, the ballot box has spoken, power to the people.

Evan Owen

Reattribution ? Is Aviva Norwich Union Pulling your leg?

I write regarding the coverage of the unequal struggle between the Policyholder Advocate and those who appointed her as recommended by the Financial Services Authority. Firstly it is certain that policyholders would question the independence of an arbiter which is appointed by the company who wish to pay out less money than was promised in policy documents and promotional literature. I myself was sceptical at first but over the many months that have been wasted due to the intransigence of the company actuaries and executives I have warmed to the team who really do have the interests of the policyholders at heart. I have been in the financial services industry almost 23 years and can vouch for the fact that the company is only disclosing part of the information to the press and this is likely to confuse and mislead policyholders who may accept far less than they are morally, and legally, entitled to. From a regulatory perspective this is hardly ‘Treating Customers Fairly’. I would suggest that the company should correct all misleading information which has been made public and clear up the mess which is of their own making. The bullying of Clare Spottiswoode could be construed as poor corporate governance and will impact upon the reputation of what was once a variety of reputable companies who were merged into the megalith we see today. Is it any wonder that the life offices and with profits in particular are now completely discredited? Further confusion is being created by a recently invented word for all this, reattribution, it appears to be a new word for a legal form of mugging. Yet more confusion was created by Hector Sants when he told the Treasury Select Committee that it was reasonable to use the money for new business expenses, I would argue that the regulator is also being hoodwinked because the new business pays for itself by way of reduced surrender values and ongoing charges so if the company also takes money out of the fund for new business acquisition it is in effect imposing two levels of charges, contrary to what the company may think this isn’t a slush fund for intercontinental buying sprees. Furthermore it is completely unacceptable for compensation to be paid from the with-profit fund simply because the policyholders didn’t do any mis-selling and to add insult to injury they have already paid for the new business which was deemed to be wrongly sold. In any event there would be no need for any compensation if they had paid out what was actually due or had not used fictitious charges to set premiums between April 1987 and January 1995. Then there is the Needler case, which they could have won on appeal had the Board not decided against sound legal advice, this cost the policyholders many £millions. Come on now, let’s get this over with and ensure that the owners of those policies which have matured or surrendered are included in the distribution of what was rightly theirs in the first place. From my point of view it would be good if the company could make amends for their acts or omissions with regard to the compensation paid out by IFAs for the shortfalls created by the companies to whom they entrusted their hard won goodwill and their clients’ hard earned money. Evan OwenThe IFA Defence Union

Nothing funny about this New Labour

Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) changes are the final straw for many rural people, farmers and others cannot take any more punishment for using the ubiquitouse four wheel drive to tow a variety of trailers containing livestock and materials. The alternative is to use a tractor and a lorry, and a van, and a car. How can the government justify backdating VED to earlier vehicles yet not prior to 2001? This is inviting people to but older and more polluting vehicles while decimating the secondhand values of newer models.

Sign this petition:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/UNFAIR-VED/