In February, the Society of Later Life Advisers (SOLLA) held their first conference called ‘The Value of Advice.' Joint chair Tish Hanifan talks to Fiona Murphy about long term care advice and the impact of the forthcoming care cap
Can you tell me about your recent conference, The Value of Advice?
The reason we did the conference was the time was right for SOLLA in terms of development. With RDR and the issues around advice and information in the draft care and support bill, the two collided at a very good time.
With RDR people are being asked to pay for advice, and I know people have always paid for advice but there is now transparency. It comes much higher up the agenda to ask: what is the value of advice. We discussed what the benefit would be to use a really good financial adviser and really transform the experience for an older person.
We decided to set the conference in Westminster and to have that government policy theme. The draft care and support bill has got quite a lot around information and advice. It’s going to transform the way in which people engage with the care sector by going through local authorities. If it works as it’s supposed to work, it will mean a lot of people get that earlier stage of information. At the moment self-funders don’t get any advice at all.
The conference showed willingness by those in government and in opposition to engage with the whole issue around financial services. It was a big move towards recognition of the role of financial services.
What have been the biggest barriers to people seeking care fee advice?
A big issue around people getting advice is at what time? In terms of consumer behaviour, when people start to make decisions around care, going to a financial adviser possibly isn’t top of their list. The people they would naturally go to are care homes.
Self-funders and their families are entering an area they don’t know anything about until it happens to them and then they’re so knee deep in the practicalities of it, that although they recognise they’ve got to fund it, the last thing on their mind is the important question, what is this financial commitment and can I deal with it?
