We are often told that financial services is a boom sector and in many ways it is, employing over 1m people and bubbling with innovation and enterprise, but does all this activity mask the fact that in one key measure the sector is actually shrinking?

The issue of vulnerable clients has become something of a hot potato in recent years so it was good this week to see some pleasing progress in the Financial Planning and financial advice arenas.

I suspect that eyes were rolling this week at the Department for Work and Pensions when Pensions Minister Laura Trott announced that Pensions Dashboards, originally due to begin in a test form this year, were being pushed back to 2026.

There was a time when the professional body sector was reassuringly dull. An oasis of calm, grey in a sea of volatile and excitable financial services.

There was an interesting, but mostly unreported, development this week on the regulatory front which may have significant repercussions for regulated firms.

When the financial historians come to write a chapter about the British Steel Pension Scheme debacle the word “shameful” is likely to be used.

With all the problems in the SIPP sector over the past few years SIPPs should be dead and buried by now.

I must say Mr Hunt is routinely catching us financial hacks out on a regular basis, as he did this week with his Mansion House pension reforms.

One thing that has always disappointed me about financial regulation is how many rotters are allowed to get involved in financial services in the first place.

The FCA will change the regulatory landscape on Monday (31 July) when the new Consumer Duty arrives.