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Dear Sir

I was more than slightly surprised to read the article "Advisers knock Scot's sacrifice pack" (FA, 4 September), particularly when the "knocking" appears to reflect the concerns of one IFA (Chris Poole) about increased competition from other advisers.

There has undoubtedly been increased interest in salary sacrifice in recent times, but this has not been matched by the support generally available from providers. That is the reason Scottish Life decided to provide advisers with as much information as possible to help them fully understand the complexities of salary sacrifice.

Our pack and online Q&As are the result of considerable research involving HMRC and HR professionals. Our material covers the advantages and disadvantages and covers the technical and practical issues in setting up and running a salary sacrifice arrangement.

Mr Poole is totally right to be a great fan of salary sacrifice. But it is vital that as many IFAs as possible have access to quality support material to help them provide quality service to their corporate clients.

Any employer who wants to provide a decent work-based pension scheme should at least know that salary sacrifice exists and how it can benefit them and their employees. That is precisely what our pack, which has already attracted widespread positive feedback, aims to do. If we have provided more advisers with the means of getting the salary sacrifice message across, then we have achieved that aim. Of course, we cannot tell advisers what to advise companies to do with the savings from salary sacrifice – what we can do is outline what the options are, taking all the issues into account.

The fact that Mr Poole feels this does not do him any favours, due to extra competition created, simply highlights the opportunities that salary sacrifice offers to advisers, employers and employees.

Jamie Clark

Occupational Pensions Marketing Manager

Scottish Life