By Jason Spits
TheFinancial Planning Association(FPA) is reviewing the provision of education services and may even cease to offer courses, according to chief executive Kerrie Kelly.
Kelly says if the FPA does pursue this course of action, it would instead look at becoming involved in the setting of education standards in conjunction with government and education authorities.
“The focus on education is waning and it is becoming more important to consider whether we should be an education provider or set the standards for the provision of education,” Kelly says.
“What we are strategically looking at is the function we will perform and our role in the area of education.”
Kelly says the reason the FPA is reviewing its stance as education provider is that the Diploma of Financial Planning (DFP) is now the base qualification and much of the rush to gain appropriate qualifications before March 11 has already occurred.
“The focus on education is waning and the downturn has been expected. The ongoing issue for 2004 is whether the baseline DFP is enough for broad financial advice,” Kelly says.
“We are now looking at the pathways through to the Certified Financial Planner mark and what is an appropriate mix of experience and education.”
The move away from providing education services would mark a definite departure from prior FPA policy which saw the adviser association create and promote the DFP qualification since the mid-90s.
Many elements of the DFP were adopted by the National Financial Industry Training Authority Board (NFITAB) as the basis for all industry courses supplied by a registered training organisation from the start of 2003.
Kelly also defended the redundancies within the organisation late last year stating part of her employment as chief executive was to examine member needs and that since beginning in November she had been “deluged by members saying it was not meeting adviser needs”.
As such, around a third of the FPA’s 73 staff were made redundant and business units expanded from five to eight with membership, professional practice, public policy and education to be externally focused on members and human resources, corporate services, business analysis and communications set up to maintain the organisation.
