Wealth & assets

Submission: Foundation response to Thoresen Review Interim Report

Patrick Stevens
Patrick Stevens

The Resolution Foundation welcomes the Thoresen Review of Generic Financial Advice’s (GFA) Interim Report. In particular it welcomes the Review’s intentions to carry out out a local level analysis of existing advice provision. This is important to fully harness the potential of existing local trust relationships, brands and market coverage of hard to reach groups. 

Key findings

  • The Foundation argues that targeting “vulnerability” with preventative advice should be the key to the new GFA service and as such, it is critical that a new service is promoted amongst low to median earners.
  • The Foundation supports the report’s interim conclusions which favour a ‘hybrid’ model of delivery, as well as the Report’s intention to consider in more detail the potential role of the commercial sector. However, given the risks associated with this strategy, the Foundation suggests that the lower risk alternative of the co-location of independent generic advisers ought to be investigated further. The Foundation recognises that the governance of a new GFA service is a crucial factor in its overall success and considers a newly established public body to be the most appropriate governance structure for a new advice service.
  • Finally, the Foundation agrees with the Report’s conclusions that the exact costs of a new GFA service are hard to predict and, therefore, suggests that the Review Team does not attempt to provide any more precise figures until after delivery on a more significant scale is attempted.

Further reading

Perfectly adequate?
Revisiting pensions adequacy 20 years after the Pensions Commission
·
Molly Broome, Ian Mulheirn
Calculating a Living Pension: the 2024 update
·
Molly Broome
Wealth check
What the new Government needs to know about household wealth as it navigates the challenges ahead
·
Simon Pittaway
Patrick Stevens
Patrick Stevens Trustee