Financial Planning for 'Middle England'

Gill Cardy and I ran a workshop recently at the ICAEW's annual conference for their financial services faculty.  Over time, we have become increasingly exercised by the way in which a growing proportion of IFAs appear to think that the only way in which our professional sector can survive is by restricting our services to a rather narrow monied elite.

Indeed, one of the speakers at this event, whose anonymity I shall preserve, contended that financial-planners ought to be running their businesses on the following model:  140 client meetings a year, each charged at a minimum of £2,500.

To say that this is a 'nice' business model to aspire to would be an understatement.  I am merely left wondering what proportion of 'normal' UK wage-earners would be able to afford such a service.  The 2009 survey carried out by the Office for National Statistics makes revealing reading:

Average salary	£25,428
Top 25% earnings	£31,759
Top 10% earnings	£44,881
Top 5% earnings	£58,917
Top 1% earnings	£118,027

Clearly, there's a great deal more data to help us define our target clients, other than salary/income, but even the above snapshot is sufficient to demonstrate that IFAs are unlikely to be able to charge fees equating to 10% of our client's gross salary.  It does seem as if a great deal of the current input from 'consultants' advising members of our profession how to prepare for the RDR, is likely to leave the vast proportion of normal investors in the far-from-benign clutches of the highstreet banks.  The cynical amongst us might argue that this is one of the objectives of the RDR, but I couldn't possibly comment.

It seems to me that there are opposite extremes that we need to avoid.  None of us are likely to make an adequate living specialising in financial basket cases.  Many of us might struggle to obtain the kinds of clients for whom a £2,500 fee is regarded as mere pocket-change.  In between those extremes, there are a range of shades of relative affluence, each with its own needs and priorities.  Surely to goodness, we can come up with a viable financial planning model for 'middle england'?