Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 has always been one of my favourite Ian Dury songs. It came to mind this week as we reported on the reasons to see a financial adviser.

For as long as I’ve been writing about Financial Planning, several decades now, people have been fretting about the 'fact' that the average age of a Financial Planner is 105 (ok a slight exaggeration) and many planners are ready to quit, leaving an empty shell of a profession.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak surprised quite a few people this week with an unexpected announcement direct from No.10 that financial cold calling will be banned.

One of the most extraordinary statistics this week revealed that one in four advised clients are currently helping adult children financially.

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.