Dear Members,
2019 has started as busily as 2018 ended.
David Burrowes, our Chairman and I have had the opportunity to visit members from Essex and Folkestone in the east to Plymouth, Exeter and Cardiff in the west and York in the north. It has been fascinating finding out more about the issues which are impacting on you and how the Council can help. I very much hope to meet many more of you in the coming months.
As you know I am seeking to do the following in 2019
- Develop the value the Council delivers by extending and improving the range of beneficial member services.
- Build a strong and solid communications platform that increases the Council’s profile, supports market growth and delivers an enhanced communications programme of activities.
- Investigate new incremental revenue streams, outside of membership fees.
- Evolve the Council’s organisation to reflect the growing market.
To understand how we can develop the value that the Council offers you we significantly expanded the Member Census (headline results here) which was conducted this February – with a total of 142 members taking part – nearly three times as many as in 2013. A huge thank you to everyone who took part and congratulations to Anthony Delmont of The Right Equity Release who was drawn for a £500 Fortnum & Masons hamper which he has generously donated to his local hospice in Wakefield – what a lovely gesture!
In response to this survey 70% said they would like a quarterly newsletter with enhanced editorial content. We hope this newsletter reflects that. In this edition we will be finding out more about the work of Liz Barclay, an independent adviser on our Standards Board and journalist and former member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel on the importance of reputation and Equity Release. JUST’s Ben Stafford educates us about JUST’s initiative on vulnerability, and Legal & General’s Marie Catch has drafted an article on future growth in the sector. It also contains information about media and public affairs and feedback from our Standards Board, member news and strategic initiatives among others.
Another new initiative is the introduction of a new monthly public affairs and regulatory monitor, which started in March and is shared with all members and hosted within the members area of our website. This was designed in response to the request by 48% for monthly summaries of relevant political/regulatory policy developments and is intended to be a helpful and easily accessible overview of the regulatory and parliamentary events impacting on our sector.
Also to gain insight into political issues impacting on our sector we conducted our first MP survey in January with YouGov to understand our familiarity and favourability with members of parliament across all parties and to understand the issues which are of most important to them with equity release. Full results will be shared more widely in due course, however I thought you should know that 65% of all members of parliament said that the main concern to them about later life lending was safeguards and protections. The Council is uniquely placed to give reassurance to politicians about our standard setting role – through our Standards Board – and the provision of safeguards and protections to consumers. It is also worth reflecting that in our Member Survey 68% of respondents believed that the most important priority for members for the Council in 2019 should be promoting the safeguards/standards to consumers.
We are actively doing so! The Council’s Executive team meet regularly with members of parliament, ministers, shadow ministers, advisers, regulators, think tanks (e.g. Institute for Fiscal Affairs etc) and key influencers to beat the drum for our standards and protections and to explain the significant consumer benefits that equity release can deliver. In the last few weeks David Burrowes, our Chair, Chris Pond, Chair of the Standards Board and I have met with Anneliese Dodds MP, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, David with Jonathan Reynolds MP, Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury while I attended the Treasury’s Home Finance Forum at No.11 Downing Street with Housing Minister, Kit Malthouse MP and Economic Secretary, John Glen MP. The interest in our sector is growing to reflect our market. We will benchmark parliamentary attitudes to our industry and equity release annually. This activity is also supported by our proactive media engagement programme.
It is also worth mentioning that as a supplement to our MP engagement our public affairs advisers Instinctif Partners have created a Parliamentary engagement map – mapping Council members across the country to ascertain hot-spot areas and opportunities for future regional engagement.
Our policy round-table breakfast series, which enables the Council to discuss issues which impact on our sector began with a discussion on Intergenerational Fairness and Housing Wealth with Lord Willets, Executive Chairman of the Resolution Foundation as our principal speaker. We were delighted that Guy Opperman MP, Pensions and Financial Inclusion Minister also attended. The fact that we were able to attract such high calibre speakers and guests reflects the increasing profile and favourability of equity release among senior influencers and decision makers. We are extremely grateful to Key Retirement Group for sponsoring this event. Although we intend to run a series of similar meeting during 2019 they are currently small and we have very limited space for guests – we hope to evolve these into events where all members can attend.
In 2020 the Council will launch a landmark equity release event “The Equity Release Summit 2020”. This will be a one day event in a Westminster location, with key-note addresses by senior politicians and opinion formers. It will also involve core plenary sessions focusing on broad issues of interest to our members and the sector and interactive, panel-based, subject-specific parallel sessions. This will provide exhibition & sponsorship opportunities for members and will include industry sessions/workshops. A third of members (32%) in our Survey said they would like an opportunity to take part in or support/sponsor Council activities – this will provide you with an excellent opportunity to do both!
Finally, I would ask you to make a note in your diaries for our Parliamentary Event on the Terrace of the House of Commons on 17 June. Guy Opperman MP, Pensions and Financial Inclusion Minister has very kindly agreed to be our key-note speaker. I very much hope to meet with you during the course of this year.
Kind Regards,
Jim Boyd, CEO Equity Release Council
