The Personal Finance Society is looking for financial advisers and paraplanners to help review apprenticeship standards for the profession.
The professional body — alongside the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education — is seeking members for a trailblazer group, tasked with reviewing the financial adviser and paraplanner apprenticeship standards to ensure they are fit for purpose.
Interested participants will ideally be experts in the field of financial advice and be able to consider whether the knowledge, skills and methods of assessment currently used in the schemes need to change.
Manuel Thompson-Oloko, the Chartered Insurance Institute’s early careers manager, said professional development and supporting access to careers in the personal finance profession was “at the heart of” the CII.
He added: “Apprenticeship standards in England encompass an established set of knowledge, skills and behaviours that have been identified by employers within the profession as being essential.
“To ensure these standards remain modern, relevant and inclusive, we are proud to work with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to establish a trailblazer group.”
Thompson-Oloko said it was important to review those standards to ensure the profession’s apprenticeships remained of the highest quality and equipped apprentices with the skills needed to assist clients with money matters.
Anyone interested in joining the group should email: manuel.thompson-oloko@cii.co.uk.
Members of the trailblazer group will need to attend quarterly two-hour-long meetings until the completion of the review and revision process is completed.
If the review determines that revisions are necessary, a working sub-group will be created.
Apprenticeships and training programmes for the advice profession have become increasingly important as the profession seeks to attract new advisers and paraplanners into the dwindling workforce.
Many advice firms - such as Quilter and Openwork - now have their own adviser academies and M&G Wealth is planning to launch one.
Adviser networks and industry bodies pledged in April last year to continue encouraging trainees to join apprenticeship programmes despite the coronavirus pandemic, with many networks focusing on remote learning and virtual training to do so.
imogen.tew@ft.com
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