The CISI’s first ever Financial Planning conference went “better than expected”, as fears about “tension” arising from the IFP merger failed to materialise, a CISI chief says.

Feedback from delegates about the CISI’s first ever Financial Planning conference was “overwhelmingly positive”, according to Campbell Edgar Chartered FCSI, the organisation’s head of Financial Planning.

What used to be the IFP Annual Conference took place this week under the CISI banner for the first time since the merger last November.

Mr Edgar, a former IFP President, reported that delegate numbers were just over 300. He said that, discounting about 35 attendees from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, who came last year as it coincided with the Rugby World Cup, the figure was largely the same.

He told Financial Planning Today: “It went better than expected. I thought there might be some more tension but there wasn’t any, people came along because they wanted to be here.

“The overall impression and feedback is very positive, overwhelmingly positive.

“It was a success and marked the integration of the Financial Planning fraternity into the CISI.”

A couple of people said the programme could have been ‘tweaked’, he said but “no one said it’s awful”, except for one comment during the after gala drinks session.

He said the conference was “really a watershed” for growing Financial Planning through the CISI.

Mr Edgar was pleased with the speakers who he described as “really good”.

Although “you get the occasional weakness” in sessions, he said that the FPSB’s Noel Maye, in particular, stood out as a positive because he “spoke very eloquently”.

The presentation by Guy Browning, creative director of Smokehouse, who writes humour for the Guardian and had a bestseller with Never Hit a Jellyfish With A Spade, was a highlight, he said, as it “got people in a good mood to go home”.

Another highlight, Mr Campbell said, was Phillipa Foster Back, director of the Institute of Business Ethics, who told delegates firms need to introduce training and support to staff to ensure that their code of ethics is “part of the DNA”.

The speech by Nicola Horlick, chief executive of Money&Co and CIO Glentham Capital, on crowdfunding and ISAs was “thought provoking”, he said.

The next conference will be held one week earlier than normal in the last week of September 2017.

Mr Campbell said it would probably be at Celtic Manor again.