Some suggested questions to ask the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries at its AGM (Weds 6 Sep 2023)

This is a follow up to my post on suggested candidates in the IFoA Council elections. The results of the election will be announced at its AGM starting at 1100 BST on Wednesday 6 September 2023.

The IFoA's page on its website about the AGM includes:

Those members who join the meeting, either in person or virtually, will have the option to ask questions of the presenting panel on the day. You can also submit questions in advance by emailing James Harrigan, the IFoA’s Corporate Secretary, at [email protected]. We will endeavour to answer all questions either at the meeting itself, or electronically thereafter.

The AGM is for members only (why? it used to be open to the public, including the financial press), so I am unable to attend and ask these questions myself. But I think members (including students who I think are treated very badly by the IFoA) deserve answers to the following questions:

1. (Transparency and accountability): who made the decision to delay the AGM and the Council election and how was this in line with the IFoA's Charter, Bye-Laws, Rules and Regulations?
2. (Transparency and accountability): who provided the legal advice to Council about the proposed governance changes and what mention did it make about compliance with IFoA's Royal Charter paragraph 4 and Bye-Law 17?
3. (Transparency and accountability): who made the decision that, despite most (all?) of the 194 members who wrote in objecting to the governance changes asking for the regulation changes to be reconsidered by the new Council after the AGM, the existing Council would meet before the AGM to reconsider the changes? And how was that in line with the IFoA's Charter, Bye-Laws, Rules and Regulations?
4. (Transparency and accountability): why have the results of the 2020 Member Survey still not been published, and who made the decision to break the promise made in the member pledge to publish the results of the survey each year? Shouldn't they be published, in full, with no further delay?
5. (Transparency): why has the IFoA stopped publishing (since 2019) the number of new students joining it each year? How many new students joined in each of 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023?
6. (Transparency): why has the IFoA stopped publishing detailed statistics about members ("Our members at a glance"), with the last publication being in 2016?
7. (Transparency): how many Fellows left before retirement during each of the last 2 years (2021-2022 and 2022-2023) and what was the split between men and women?
8. (Transparency) How many students lapsed or resigned their membership during each of the last 2 years (2021-2022 and 2022-2023) and what was the split between men and women?
9. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): given that Acted makes a profit large enough to pay a dividend of ￡2m each year to its parent company, on turnover of about ￡8m, if it is true that the IFoA sets Acted's prices, wouldn't it be more in the public interest and fairer to students for the IFoA to tell Acted to charge students less and make a dividend that looks less like a monopoly profit? What are the financial arrangements between the IFoA, Institute and Faculty Education Limited (an IFoA subsidiary) and Acted?
10. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): is it true that over 40% of students never reach Fellowship? If not what is the true figure and how does it vary between men and women.
11. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): is it true that, for those who reach Fellowship, the median time to qualify is higher for non UK students as compared to UK students? How does the median time to qualify vary between men and women? For transparency and fairness, why hasn't the IFoA produced a detailed analysis of Fellowship qualification time (including information on dropout rates) split by men, women and country?
12. (Transparency and accountability): why have no student consultative forum minutes been published for over 2 years (since June 2021)?
13. (Accountability): who wrote part 1 of the IFoA's FAQs on the recent governance changes, which said that "The IFoA’s governance has not materially changed since 2010"? That is incorrect and materially misleads members and the public since an in depth review of the IFoA's governance was carried out during 2016 to 2018 (as is mentioned in Council minutes of October 2016, May 2017, October 2017 and January 2018 for example) including an external review of the structure by Moore Stephens LLP.
14. (Transparency and accountability): why did the IFoA engage Kingsley Napley, a firm very close to its General Counsel, to advise on a judicial review in 2022, when this is in direct contravention of the strong recommendation in the 2021 RICS governance scandal report by Alison Levitt QC that external legal firms should not be close to General Counsel (because in the RICS case Fieldfisher failed to provide RICS with objective or balanced advice)? Did IFoA Council agree to this despite the very strong recommendations in the Levitt Report?
15. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): why did the IFoA in its 2 webinars earlier this year on its proposals to embed "DEI" (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) in its Actuaries' Code, tell participants that "the IFoA and its members have long had a deep and abiding belief in diversity, equity and inclusion", when (despite requests) the IFoA only defined what it meant by "equity" in January 2023? Isn't making assertions that are not supported by evidence something that a professional body should avoid doing?
16. (Transparency and accountability): how much has been spent on external legal advice in each of the last 3 financial years?
17. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): from the sparse financial information in the accounts, it seems as if there might have been exceptional payouts to former staff on departure. Can Council advise whether this was in respect of NDAs? If so, can it answer why this should be necessary when defamation law is as it is in the UK and there's a stigma, time etc barriers of former employees pursuing an employment tribunal process which is likely to significantly reduce the risk of spurious claims?
18. (Transparency): how much will the subscriptions be from 1 October 2023? These are normally announced much earlier than now, but there is still no information on the IFoA website about this.
19. (Transparency and accountability): the 15 March 2023 Council minutes refer to the member Net Engagement Score which has been a key performance metric for the IFoA. Why has this not been disclosed for a long time? What were the values for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?
20. (Transparency and accountability): why has the IFoA stopped publishing its Corporate Plans since the one for 2018/2019 (https://www.actuaries.org.uk/system/files/field/document/Corporate%20Plan%202018%20A5%20V03.pdf)?
21. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): It's understood the Executive is failing to settle litigation with ex-members while at the same time they are trying to impose terms that would inhibit such ex-members from speaking up in the public interest about IFoA failings going forward. Why is Council allowing that?
22. (Transparency, accountability and fairness): How come so far this year, two thirds of the way through the year, only one disciplinary case has been published (about a student lying to his employer), compared to 15 last year, and compared to 40 for Chartered Accountants, 68 for Chartered Surveyors, and 50 for UK solicitors in the last month alone)? Are actuaries really that much better behaved than other professionals, or has the IFoA been failing to manage conflicts of interest with its large employers, with no actuaries having been disciplined despite multi billion pound losses in both insurance under loyalty penalty/price walking, and pensions in the LDI scandal? Is it also true that after formal complaints were made about senior actuaries in the multi billion pound price walking scandal, those complaints were dismissed without any need for the actuaries (including some for a company that had been fined almost ￡100m for telling loyal customers that their premiums were competitive when they were far higher than for new customers) to produce a formal defence, because the IFoA Case Manager and Investigation Actuary (despite being warned that the IFoA had a conflict of interest because it had encouraged price walking in its syllabus) said that there was no case to answer? How is the public served by the FRC and IFoA effectively marking their own homework in such cases, and treating large insurance companies with kid gloves?

Update 5 Sep 2023 at 1855 BST: questions 16 to 18 added.

Update 5 Sep 2023 at 2008 BST: question 19 added.

Update 5 Sep 2023 at 2015 BST: question 20 added.

Update 5 Sep 2023 at 2123 BST: question 21 added.

#actuaries #accountability #transparency #fairness #elections #governance #ifoa