Recognition matters – but not just for job titles
Over the past week, FT Adviser ran a piece on whether paraplanners should be formally recognised by the FCA. It struck a chord.
Should paraplanners be formally recognised by the FCA?
Because here’s the thing: this isn’t really about job titles. It’s about how the profession sees suitability assurance – the discipline of testing, evidencing, and proving advice before it ever reaches the client.
At We Complement, we see this every single day. Suitability assurance isn’t an afterthought. It’s what gives advisers confidence, helps clients actually understand the jargon, and shows regulators that firms are delivering Consumer Duty in practice. That’s why we’ve taken the role further with Suitability Consultants – not just writing reports, but shaping advice so it’s clear, structured, and defensible from the start.
Why leaving suitability to the end is a problem
Too often, suitability only shows up at the very end of the process – when the report’s drafted, the advice’s written, and the adviser’s already moved on. That’s where the pain starts.
- Adviser time gets eaten up: A Rathbones study, covered by Money Marketing, showed compliance is taking a big bite out of the time advisers actually spend with clients link. Retrospective QA is a huge part of that.
- Clients are lost in translation: A fifth of pension holders say they don’t understand a single pension term. If suitability reports don’t translate advice into plain English, then we’re not doing our job.
- Firms risk being on the back foot: Without formal recognition of suitability as a discipline, it can too easily be seen as a “nice to have.” That’s a dangerous place to be when the FCA is widening Consumer Duty to cover everything from pensions to crypto.
Suitability Consultants: more than just “paraplanners plus”
This is why we think the conversation about recognition doesn’t go far enough. A Suitability Consultant isn’t just a paraplanner with a shinier badge. The role has grown up.
Here’s how we see it:
- Forensic: challenging adviser inputs and testing logic against FCA rules before the advice ever gets near a client.
- Structured: using processes like Advice Readiness Checks (ARC) and Suitability Matrix Scoring so that every case is traceable, versioned, and audit-ready.
- Human: turning technical recommendations into plain, client-friendly language (because let’s be honest, if you can’t explain it without jargon, it probably won’t land).
In short: they’re not back-office support. They’re part of the infrastructure of advice integrity.
A few practical things firms can do right now
If you’re nodding along, here are three simple shifts you can make without turning your whole process upside down:
- Start suitability earlier Don’t wait for QA to catch issues. Build suitability assurance into the advice construction stage. It saves rework and makes files more defensible.
- Make clarity a non-negotiable Test whether your reports actually make sense to someone outside the profession. If a client can’t explain back the recommendation in their own words, we need to do better.
- Treat suitability as strategic, not back-office The firms that are thriving under Consumer Duty aren’t those with the flashiest tools. They’re the ones that embed suitability as a front-line discipline.
So, should paraplanners get FCA recognition?
Probably. But I’d argue the debate needs to stretch further. It’s not just about paraplanners getting a formal nod. It’s about recognising that suitability assurance itself is too important to stay in the shadows.
Done well, it’s the thing that frees up adviser time, helps clients feel confident, and gives regulators the evidence they’re asking for. Done badly, it’s just more paperwork.
And nobody got into financial planning to drown in paperwork.
Final thought
This industry loves to talk about efficiency, but the bigger win is trust. Suitability assurance done properly builds both.
That’s what excites me about where the role is going. And if you’re also feeling the compliance drag, or you’ve got your own take on recognition, I’d love to hear it.
