The story was outside not inside the Conference

In terms of attendance and overall satisfaction levels, the PLSA’s 2024 investment conference was a success. In terms of moving on the key debates on how pension funds should be invested , what makes for good governance and how benefits of pension schemes should be taxed and paid, this conference was pretty hopeless.

It was a “mother hen ” affair with delegates directed  round the International Conference Centre but finding themselves with little to really get their teeth into , by way of debate.

We had one challenging keynote speaker in Kelly Beaver and an entertaining keynote from Paul Maynard, in between, we had a number of dreary panels with too much sponsorship , too few questions from the floor and an agenda that missed the key issues.

While we were in Edinburgh the Freehold and Leasehold Bill was being debated in parliament, SJP’s share=price imploded, private meetings were being held off site to discuss the housing of alternatives in DC schemes, parties were arranged on the other side of the street, in short – the real action seemed to be happening elsewhere.

We were protected from the real debate by a pre-agreed agenda that stopped short of admitting voices that might be off-message, I felt pretty isolated for most of the three days, in asking difficult questions. This is not how a properly functioning investment conference should work.

Consequently, the press room, which I had the privilege of working out of, struggled to find stories on the event to post to the trade press. Short of the FT, there was no public press at the event, the broadcast media were nowhere to be seen.

This meant that the occasion was a bubble. I have tried with my daily reports to communicate the frisson of the occasion but I fear that I have failed.

I look back on my three days in Edinburgh as a time when I had many private meetings which were productive and enjoyable, but I have had very few insights from the sessions I sat through. This year , the PLSA started streaming sessions to the Exhibition Hall, it meant that people could drink their coffee and champagne while watching TV, much as they do in boxes at sporting events. But this is to the detriment of the live event – too many empty seats – and to the debate, too little interaction with the audience,

The PLSA urgently need to make available a large number of free places to deserving younger people of the calibre of Tegs Harding. We need to hear from  the influencers of debate, the Toms, the Abrahams, the Hollies and the Mark Ormstons who are reshaping the way pensions are bought. We need dissenting voices such as Chris Sier, Norma Cohen, Iain Clacher at these events. We need devils as well as saints.

This was a friendly event, but it did not challenge us, did not stretch us and too much of our time was spent on our phones wondering what was going on elsewhere. I am extremely grateful to have had the chance to meet so many people in a safe environment but my overwhelming feedback to the PLSA is to make this event sharper and harder rather than to cushion it. If it so de-risks itself that it loses its remaining edge, it will be the bland leading the bland. At that point a conference becomes a trade-show.