Judgment Day

I’ll enjoy my life when the current IFoA executive administration publish the membership survey and resign.

 

You sound rather too Informed about the case to bring up this point. There’s so much negative in the case for the IFoA and you bring up the only positive! Don’t worry, what the IFOA have said is complete rubbish. Read the law, it’s not a defence and confusing the court via lack of disclosure to allow me to make my claim will not be taken lightly.

 

It's not reasonable. IFoA knew Associateship was good enough for the European standard but traded Fellowship.

How odd it is that an actuary argues 2 = 4 and Associateship = Fellowship? That's a fair thing to ask.

 

Then that will make the IFoA's equality and diversity values out to be a complete sham and bring IFoA into further disrepute. It's worthless condemning discrimination when they're not prepared to address their own. It's wrong that members should continue to remunerate those highly paid people who are responsible for it and decided to cover it up at IFoA. As null reminds us, this is not the only thing to land on IFoA recently, they've been done by the regulators ASA and ICO as well. It's unacceptable they have a business model that fails to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.

 

I heard that John Delaney and Terry Venables are favourites to take over from CEO Derek Cribb in light in this latest dispute in a series of IFoA scandals

 

I completely agree with you Almost_there. It would be very odd for anybody to argue that 2=4, albeit I don't seem to recall anybody proposing such things.

Not once have I said Associateship = Fellowship but it is being suggested that they are through the MRAs by you/Null, which seems to be based on the opinion of 3 actuaries who acted as witnesses for Null and non-publically available information which only you seem to have access to.

I asked for a link to another case you referenced where you alleged the IFoA had been found guilty of wrong doing and you refused. I managed to find the case where the loophole regarding IAI members was exposed and noted this point about mutual recognition.

If the MRAs genuinely are devaluing the qualification then I wish you well in proving your point if that is what you are seeking to achieve.

 

Absolutely - it is not some trivial 'loophole' and we must wonder why dmck is making so much effort to trivialise this matter. He can't have it both ways - if the matter so trivial then why did IFoA go to such lengths to keep the status quo? IFoA have around 6000 Indian members. Should the possibility to sit exams with both bodies no longer apply then the primary incentive for them to join IFoA as well as IAI would disappear and they'd leave. It each Indian student brings in £500/year to IFA that's £3m lost revenue for IFoA from a total turnover of £11m...

 

"must wonder why dmck is making so much effort to trivialise this matter". I'm a UK-based member so as much of a "victim" as anybody else. What are you wondering about?

I've previously articulated in several posts why I have certain opinions regarding why I don't think the extra sittings put UK students at a disadvantage but you just seem to dismiss my comments.

 

Yes this loophole... which part does dmck not understand. It’s an illegal discriminatory act and your calculation about the IFOA losing 3m a year is spot on

 

I don't see how it's not a disadvantage. Back in the day when I was struggling to pass the old CA3 exam, which I thought was a bit of lottery whether I passed or not, I would have loved to have been able to attempt that 4 times a year rather than two. I was three years trying to pass it and got it on my 6th attempt. I then qualified and got all those wonderfully paying fully qualified jobs. Had I been able to attempt it 6 times in the space of 1.5 years rather than 3 then I would have got that fully qualified job much earlier, and I would have more money earlier to spend on cigarettes and snooker as my profile picture suggests. Instead, because I wasn't a fellow yet I was passed over for promotions. There is a non-trivial financial cost to it.

 

In the grand scheme of things, this latest infraction of racial discrimination pales into insignificance when compared to:
- Derek Cribb Chief Executive of the IFoA earning a whopping £337k per year in 2015, rising to £389k a year in 2018. I wonder what self appointed pay rise he will get in 2019 when the IFoA publish their financial statements
- in 2018, the IFoA had £25m of cash and other assets which were "available for sale" on their balance sheet, yet continue to charge for ridiculous money spinners like the old CT9 course

 

Thanks for the support Jimmy. I’ve pointed this out already. His salary used to be 200k in 2000 I believe. No one is listening. I’m also waiting for him to answer why he’s lied in the 20167/2017 annual report.

It’s clear that the IFoA are up to no good.

 

I don't see how he can continue in light of this Judgment. It's not a one-off calamity. There will be more Judgments on the way. They've also been done by ASA an ICO regulators. Not forgetting that 2016/17 annual report.

My understanding is that he's accountable to IFoA Management board. It is them who would have to sack him.This is who's on it:
https://www.actuaries.org.uk/about-us/governance-and-structure/management-board

 

Exactly. This is why some want to play it down as potentially thousands of Brits have a claim here.

 

Glad to hear you are enjoying snooker and cigarettes now anyway

My point was just that I wouldn't have the time to study for one sitting then take another exam the following month. I doubt many of my colleagues would want to have such intense exam cycles either - but I guess we are all used to 2 exam sittings. I always found it good to have a bit of a break and relax rather than constantly study all the way through but I appreciate that everyone is different and that it was wrong to have one set of students with the option of 4 sittings compared to another set only having 2 sittings per year.

Just my opinion on a study approach rather than anything more sinister as being suggested by some other posters.

 

What's the claim? Your implying that there is financial compensation... and that it applies to everyone. The best null will get will be some compensation, but by your post your assuming that thousands of brits applied to the IAI and received emails to say they could not sit exams as they were British. In reality this did not happen, and hence thousands don't have a claim.... that's the facts whether you want to believe it or not.

As the IAI were not the respondents in the case, the court cannot force them to do anything, so the idea the students will be able to sit 4 exams a year, is not going to be the outcome.

 

I imagine IFoA are very concerned of follow-up claims. Had the British student been able to join in 2010 then word would have got around, on forums like this, and many others would have done the same. Similarly look at the many students who now submit a SAR to get their exam marks. This came about from one student doing so in 2012.

 

That is the truth. IFoA should operate strictly within legal and regulatory boundaries. That's not too much to ask a CEO who's on nearly £400k.

 

In terms of the spacing of the exams, 4 exam sittings sounds good, but only if you intend to sit the same papers within each pair of sittings. Note that the style of the questions asked varies between IFoA, IAI and NTU (even though they all came from the same syllabus, at least until 2018 - NTU follows the old syllabus for my cohort and will only do the new syllabus for the next cohort).

Although not a student member of IAI, I have essentially done the same thing with CT5 (IFoA's September 2018 and NTU's November 2018 sittings) and, unfortunately, this didn't work out nearly as well with CT6 (IFoA's early April 2019 sitting as CS2/CM2 and NTU's late April 2019 sitting as CT6). But it's better to simply pass it the first time round.

 

You also seem rather too informed about the case... therefore you’re missing the point. This is not about the IAI or what they’ve done. It’s about the illegal discriminatory actions of the IFOA. They practically run the IAI, if you’ve read the judgment you’ll note that not only have they discriminated but under the guidance of Mr Cribb, who is a qualified accountant, they have instructed to discriminate.

What break do we get? My entire life has been ruined. Exams are permanently on my mind. I have to plan my limited social and family life around the exams and I’ve lived in constant worry and never got used to the constant feeling of failure. Having to study 20 to 40 days every six months on top of a full time job is not normal. Having to take personal holiday time due to lack of support from my employer is not normal. I’m psychologically scared and can’t even sleep at night.

The IFOA couldn’t even provide proper grading and as we’ve seen from several posters like Almost there and the other people who have had marking discrepancies and examination problems, the IFOA unable to administer the examination system. Mr Cribb is busy enjoying his almost 400k salary galavanting across the world. What is the point of the latest council meeting in Kenya? How much will it cost and what benefit is it going to bring to British members?

You are distracting members from the fact. The IFOA have discriminated against myself and if more British members brought a claim, they would also be entitled to compensation.

This is not about securing 4 exam sittings for everyone. This is about punishing the IFOA for their illegal discriminatory conduct which has now been proven in court and holding individuals responsible for their deplorable actions

 

Quite. IFoA's attempt to shift the blame onto IAI completely failed at the Court.