What a start to the year, writes Claire Menni, the new chair of the IFP's London branch.
At our January meeting, our speaker Campbell Edgar FIFP, CFP^CM of John Lamb LLP pulled in a near record number of attendees for his talk on assumptions in Financial Planning, entitled "Assumptions – a planner's nightmare." He even went viral on Twitter with his one-liner 'the thicker the plan the thicker the planner'.
On a more serious note, Campbell provided a timely reminder of the basis of how we formulate assumptions used in a plan. He stressed the need to ensure they are reasoned, reasonable and sufficient as they are the foundations to a client’s plan. To quote Paul Etheridge FIFP, CFPCM: “If a client agrees with the data going into a plan and agrees with the assumptions used, then they must accept the outputs”.
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He also highlighted the importance of having at least an annual review with clients as a means of checking whether the assumptions used need adjusting at all. Campbell stressed that less is more, that is don’t get caught up in layers of detail which don’t add any extra value for the client. For those currently working on or considering CFPCM certification, Campbell provided some exceptionally useful tips on resources for assumptions which have been validated by a third party.
With a captive audience of well over 70 delegates, I then seized the opportunity to introduce myself but more importantly to outline our branch programme for the year.
 It is broadly split into two strands – personal development and business development. I have intentionally stayed away from technical Financial Planning subjects as I think the London IFP branch can offer content which isn’t ordinarily available easily elsewhere.
As the Surrey branch attendees will know (and the London attendees will get bored of me saying), I am a huge advocate of the branch meetings being suitable for people at all stages of their careers.
 I strongly encourage all readers to forward the meeting invites to their team to encourage them to come along and see what they are missing (and to then become IFP members as well of course!). They’ll be sure to get a great welcome, pick up useful CPD and great tips and ideas into the bargain.

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