The proposalby the Financial Planning Association (FPA) to widen the criteria for membership has the potential to not only boost its membership numbers but add greater relevance to the body.

Since its inception, the FPA has been the representative face of financial planners, and has worked for them with government and regulators to ensure members can continue working without undue interference and upheaval by bureaucracy. It has also spearheaded campaigns for issues such as education standards and compliance.

However, it has not been entirely representative of the whole industry. The 1996 FPA Conference brought out, through a number of heated discussions about the nature of the association, the difference between practitioner and principal members.

At the time, the practitioner members – those working in practices – felt they were getting short shrift in favour of the principal members – those working within the industry in areas such as funds management.

The debate at the time also centred on how inclusive the association should be, with reports indicating that these discussions were also heated, but the subject of membership beyond financial planners was either not raised or discussed at length.

From the time the FPA started, financial planning itself has come a long way and now means many different things. The days of the planner being the person doing all the work of the practice are practically gone and planners now use a range of paraplanning, compliance, technical services and support staff to actually perform the work of financial planning.

These people could create their own representative groups and industry bodies and there may be such organisations in existence, but an expanded FPA membership would be more representative of all of those at the coal face of planning.

One example of this situation in reverse has been the recent tussle over the alienation of personal services incomes. In that situation, three groups – the FPA, the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) – were all involved in trying to secure better conditions for their members. However, not one of those groups could speak authoritatively for the industry.

It is possible that not every one in financial planning is keen to be part of the FPA due to various reasons. Expanding the membership of the association will not make it a home for everybody and that is another matter, but it is the only group at present with scale and a widespread industry presence.

The idea of an expanded membership is also in keeping with the idea that financial planning has become a professional industry, which is what the FPA and its members have been saying for some time.

Financial planners should not be too exclusive about who could be members of the industry association, many of them have worked as hard to establish their professions and their professionalism. To have them work in the industry but to exclude them from its representative body smacks of elitism.