Is Consumer Panel’s assessment fair?

It “seems incapable of talking in plain language”, she says, and has yet to clean up its act, in spite of mis-selling scandals and the retail distribution review.

Some of her views are based on the use of ‘in kind’ inducements [to sell certain products], which is presumably a continuing critique of the network model.

Yet as the sun sets on trail commission, is this really a fair assessment? Another of her assertions – that people who do not use advisers do not know about the RDR – feels somewhat irrelevant, when most people acknowledge that some move upmarket from advisers was inevitable after a commission ban.

As for clients, I have helped several advisers with their client communications in the past few years and all have been super-keen to extol the benefits of the RDR. To my mind, it is the clients’ awareness that counts – at least to start with.

In comments that will cause a few gaskets to blow, Ms Lewis also suggested that when advisers attach advice to a product, in reality this amounts to a sale.

I would suggest that advice and advisers are in a pretty good place. The removal of commission should, over time, remove more and more doubts – real and imagined – about advisers.

The removal of commission should, over time, remove more and more doubts – real and imagined – about advisers

The regulations and the qualifications should also lead to a definite reduction in mis-selling and the suspicion of mis-selling and bias. We will never reach zero mis-selling – surely a theoretical state of affairs – but all this upheaval must surely bring a reduction in problems.

On the sales point, advisers do sometimes have to sell the concept of advice as a service, and indeed often recommend a course of action which may be a product or a product-like wrapper.

But given all the other changes, it would be at best inconsistent and worst terrifically unfair to call advisers salesmen and saleswomen.

Now, whether that label should apply to some other kinds of distribution – say, bank salesmen and women – is another debate. Seriously, policymakers may have missed a trick there.

Instead what we have is a somewhat messy standoff around the advice gap. The FCA believes new models and technology can close the gap if the industry shows willing. The bulk of advisers I speak to think not.

And for a big player to really put its regulatory capital and reputation behind automated advice, more clarity from the FCA is required.

This brings me to the Treasury select committee and its members’ concerns about the advice gap. Tory MP Mark Garnier raised the issue of access to advice in the most recent evidence session, so at least the FCA will have to keep answering questions.

The FCA’s stance is far from satisfactory. There is a sense of ‘wait and see’ from the regulator, with its expectation that the gap can be filled with technology, coupled with focused or limited advice.

This columnist is not so sure. Indeed, it is possible that Sue Lewis has hit on something, though maybe not entirely intentionally.

It isn’t this generation of IFAs who should be called salespeople. But maybe something called sales could fill the gap without leaving people unaware that they were being sold to.

John Lappin blogs on industry issues at ww.themoneydebate.co.uk