Welcome to a new feature on Financial Planning Today called Newsmakers where Financial Planning Today catches up with the people making headlines in the Financial Planning and Paraplanning professions.

A report published by Octopus Group at the beginning of August, reported that “almost a third (29%) of financial advisers polled said they expect to retire within the next five years, rising to 6 in 10 (58%) within the next ten.” This is “equivalent to more than 15,000 financial advisers leaving the profession out of a current total of over 26,600.”

Organisers have spoken of a “great” Paraplanners Powwow last week.

If you’d told me 10 years ago that Paraplanners would don warpaint once a year and happily gather to chew over technical issues in a giant teepee in Northants I might have suggested you’d been smoking the peace pipe a bit too long.