The creation of common paraplanning standards was up for debate at the Cisi financial planning conference this morning (5 October), with mixed reaction.
The issue has been discussed in recent months after a group of paraplanners took part in a series of events across the country on common standards.
It followed concerns that anyone could call themselves a paraplanner.
But Joanna Hague, a paraplanner at Doncaster-based Investment for Life, told the event she was not sure what benefit there would be in a common standard.
She said: “Advisers are the ones who are responsible; they are the ones who should be regulated and qualified to a certain level.
“Paraplanners are the ones who help them do their work.
“If they are CF30, the moment they sign that recommendation they are not paraplanning anymore, they are advising.”
She also expressed scepticism that a common standard could be created for a job as varied as paraplanning.
But Gill Cardy, insight consultant at Defaqto, said many of the arguments made against common standards for paraplanning were also made against common standards for advice in 2010.
She said: “There are certain expectations, there are requirements. Why wouldn’t we want to set that down in some way, because you are working with advisers who have had to do the same thing.
“It just proves that you are confident and capable of being able to deliver in that space.”
Ian Howe, managing director of Baigrie Davies, said paraplanning standards should be a matter for each firm but said there were issues with the vagueness of the job title.
He said: “We at Baigrie Davies try to grow our own talent but occasionally we need to recruit externally and the term paraplanner is such a broad church that it is almost meaningless.
“I have had the misfortune of seeing some CVs of people who call themselves paraplanners and they really are not.”
But he said he “was struggling” to see how a common set of standards could take into account the nuances of each firm’s processes.
