The MIDDLE CLASSES WILL NEVER CHANGE.

A country-wide fraud – this article addressed to the Inland Revenue.
Dear Sirs,
This letter addresses several related issues: -
a) “Benefits- in –kind” received by government officials, for instance, Pension Regulators’ Officers;
b) Cartels, collusion and corruption;
c) Income tax on Benefits-in-kind.
d) Licences maintained through “Benefits-in-kind” – is this equal employment opportunities, or are professionals acting as protective unions in order to defeat the unfair competition rules?
e) Once you’re in the magic circle, you cannot be easily removed, but getting in is the crux. Contrary to the Equal Opportunities Act.
f) Race Discrimination Act. There were three black people at the conference, which was attended by 246 white people. Is this “Equal Opportunities” in a profession that is supposed to practice the law?
g) I have a right to my good reputation and I wish it to be known that the Secretary threatened to sue me if I publish even though every newspaper in the United Kingdom has at least one page about pensions, pension lawyers, actuaries and pension disasters every day. This is bullying me into being quiet about what I saw and heard. I now fear for my life and if I am dead within the year you all will know why.

The Association of Pension Lawyers’ Annual Conference sent out a letter stating “MAKE USE OF THE BEDROOMS WHICH SLEEP TWO”. I wanted to be there vecause of the recent fraud case in which the main culprit is a Pensions lawyer raiding the company’s pension fund of £3.3 million. Happily , he in now in prison.. (The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of R v Kevin Sykes, Simon Michael Maya, Trevor Hamilton Farrell, Altaf Sayed, Ian David Selby, Cassius Augustus Powell and Adrienne Gay Morris, the CHEYNEY PENSION FRAUD”)


The delegates went to have a five-course dinner on Thursday night and returned to the Marriott Hotel Bristol between midnight and 2am Sunday. Many did not turn up to the conference the next day. Many bedroom doors had “DO NOT DISTURB” notices the following day.

Several enjoyed the Executive suites on the TOP floor.
They all enjoyed the most lavish cooked high quality lunches and breakfasts.

What bothers me is this. Why, at a conference for senior pension EXPERTS did a speaker have to discuss basic CONTRACT LAW - IMPLIED TERMS?
Very basic stuff –

It amazed me to see these allegedly SENIOR PENSION LAWYERS scribbling notes on cases such as BOLAM.
If 20 years ago the pension scheme was invested in 90 % high risk and 10% low risk investments, then that was OK, because it was common practice to invest in that fashion then. So one is not liable for professional negligence.
My thoughts on that were - tell that “common practice” story to the prosecutors in R v Saunders -and – they should read the article on Mondaq.com - ‘The culpability of fraudsters’.

An analogy would be this – if all the cars around you were travelling at 110 miles an hour and you were stopped for speeding, is the momentary common practice a legitimate excuse for breaking the law?

What bothers me even more is that there were no less than FIVE PERSONS FROM THE PENSIONS REGULATORS OFFICE which seemed to be to be an over –cosy affair - especially as the Pensions Ombudsman is holding a seminar in London on 6th December 2005 at Brewer’s Hall Aldermanbury House, EC27HR.

I wondered if these five officials have registered these benefits worth £1000 to each person, in their register of interests ,if the Pensions Regulator’s Office has such a policy of registering conflicts of interest and benefits-in-kind.

I calculated to that a handsome profit or excess of approximately £147,120 was made from the event. I wondered where this money is????

Even taking Value Added Tax into account, the same Value Added Tax that each delegate or his firm will promptly reclaim, to the country pensions lawyers. Still hefty at £121,374.00. It should be refunded immediately. But each delegate or delegate’s firm will reclaim the VAT on the delegates’ fees, and so there is another gain of 17.5% of the total fees paid, which is equal to a nice pocket of money worth £42,700.
All in all, these delegates as an association had a high class two days and a profit from the “taxman” and the “pensioners of the country” of over £164,000.00. This is no laughing matter.

Such accounts should be published and open for inspection. Each event’s accounts should be open to inspection. All accounts of NOT -FOR -PROFIT ORGANISATIONS should be open for inspection.

Professional Not -for -Profit Associations go to FRANKFURT, CARIBBEAN, and other overseas places for their conferences, fancying a change ultimately at the expense of the tax payer by way of their delegate fees being a deductible item on their firm’s Profit and Loss Account.This particulat Association went to Frankfurt in 2004 and justified it by one single talk by one German delegate. Would it not have been cheaper to fly in one delegate rather than ship out hundreds of delegates to hear just one delegate speak about German law? There is an all day conference at Grays’ Inn on Friday where the whole conference is about French and German law – the whole conference. They did not have to ship hundreds of us to France and Germany.

I estimate that, in the United Kingdom, at least a billion pounds a year is set off against income at tax relief rates of 35 to 40 % or three hundred and fifty million pounds (£350million) refund to professional firms, fat enough already.

It is my opinion that these conferences are totally unnecessary because we have, telephones, faxes, Internet conferencing, etc. Even the courts use such methods for evidence in certain cases. Why the need to touch and feel? Unless it is so that networking meetings go UN-MINUTED? It should be televised or be usable electronic evidence allowable in a court of law.

I cannot think of any other reason except to shop in a different place perhaps? Delegates told me that they went shopping instead of to the lectures. And if young conference goers need schooling, is it not better to do it “at home” in the office, so that no one knows the extent of their lack of expertise? I heard some of the 2003 Conference speeches and one female speaker, had a half hour playtime of getting these “professionals” to wiggle their toes and rub behind their ears [really] as one does with infant school children. Really. God’s truth. And this was before the partying that night.

My proposal to the INLAND REVENUE is this:
If conference delegate fees are to remain VAT refundable and income tax refundable and corporation tax refundable, then either the employer must deduct the time spent away from the employee’s desk from their salaries (unless you are a chief finance officer or chief executive). These senior persons need to make decisions, which need to be ironed out. If they make illegal moves, such are cartel arrangements, collusion, or corrupt contract arrangements they can be more easily caught.

Catching any cartel activity or contracts collusion or conflict of interest would be simpler. An example of potential Conflict of Interest is as found in this table: -
Possibilities of conflict of interest- known public domain information collected like this can be useful in tracking who these people are meeting in hotels, for cosy dinners, etc.
FTSE Company Finance Director Formerly from Present Auditors
AMVESCAP R Mc Cullough Arthur Anderson Arthur Anderson
Assoc of British Foods J Bason Arthur Young KPMG
BAA M Ewing Deloitte and Touche KPMG
British Land Company G Roberts Arthur Anderson Arthur Anderson
Dixons Group J Darroch Deloitte Haskins & Sells Deloitte & Touche
HSBC D Flint KPMG KPMG
P & O Princess Cruises N Luff KPMG KPMG
Sainsbury R Matthews Price Waterhouse PwC
Scottisdh Power D Nish Price Waterhouse PwC
Smiths Group Thompson Arthur AndersonPrice Waterhouse PwC
Wolseley S Webster Price Waterhouse PwC


High level meetings should be minuted. There is no such policy nor is it mentioned in the Enterprise Act.
But enough is enough.
These conference goers are taking the man in the street for a laugh., partying and eating lavishly.
I understand that the INLAND REVENUE has limits to the amount of money that can be set off against income for tax relief; each company can spend on its employees at Christmas- less than £100 maximum. These conference goers get their Christmas Party revelling on the taxpayer as well. For if a person, qualified professional or unqualified in a professional office, IS NOT UP TO SPEED, he should not be in that job because he is obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception.
Deception can mean being “paper qualified” but being “incompetent” in the job without further training.

This incompetence is a separate matter to CPD. CPD means ensuring that one is UP TO DATE, not that one catches up on one’s initial incompetence or compertence and this goes for all meetings and conferences. If you cannot say it on paper, you cannot say it full stop.

CARTELS work in an un-minuted way, meetings in a hotel, meetings over dinner, etc; so does bribery and corruption. (See the case of
Director of Fair Trading v Pioneer Concrete (UK) Ltd. )
The actions of a company’s employees acting in the course of their employment, amounts to carrying on of business by the company.

If such conferences are in fact “staff training” en masse, the Inland Revenue should be aware of it as such. Staff training is done during working hours. BUT CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT is a professional’s own business. It is up to the professional to obtain the number of required CPD hours in order for HIS LICENCE TO BE RENEWED.

The employer pays a professional a certain level of salary by dint of the fact that that person holds that licence. If the employer pays for that professional to keep that licence, then in my humble opinion, that is a perk or benefit to that employer who is already benefiting from having such a licence. If that professional cannot make his CPD hours, the job should go to someone who is competent.

Does the obtaining of CPD hours include time spent shopping?
How is it examined? IT IS NOT EXAMINED.
Are people who attend conferences tested on their development? NO.
. If they were tested on the spot on their return to work and they failed, could the employer just boot them out.? NO.
He would have to face the Employment Rights Act.

So he should employ competent persons in the first place. But in the UK, we will never know the answer.



In my humble opinion, as small businesses go, these not-for-profit-associations is a very profitable way of gaining even more money from poor hard done by pensioners, caught by
Actuaries’ incompetence,
lawyer’s high-class taste and
the “taxman” as is colloquially put.
Poor pensioners.!
Bring on the Double Jeopardy fraud cases, please.














Delegates’ Fees [ ] 244,000.00
Less Expenses:
Hotel bedrooms including breakfast [ ] 54,780.00
Cost of conference hall hire 2,000.00 E
Delegates lunches [ ] 14,950
Dinner on 24th[ ] 18,675.00
Bus hire to and from dinner 500.00 E
Conference typing and organising [ ]Gifts for each delegate [ ] 0
5,980.00
Total Expenses of APL Conference 2005 96,880.00
NET PROFIT or EXCESS 147,120.00
EXAMPLE OF ONE CONFERENCE, its costs, excluding productive time lost by the employer.
INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE CONFERENCE-

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