Actuaries fight merger plans

OPPONENTS of a plan to merge Scotland's Faculty of Actuaries with the equivalent body south of the Border have vowed to continue to fight the proposals.

The councils of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland and the Institute of Actuaries in England have proposed that the two bodies come together by July 2009.

But a group of members of both bodies do not agree that the bodies' separate identities should be lost soon after their 150th anniversaries. A formal Actuarial Defence Group, named FIDELIS from the Faculty's motto "Ad finem fidelis", has been set up to maintain a continuing challenge to the proposed merger.

Members of FIDELIS say that too much emphasis has been placed by the joint councils on the advantages of a merger, with insufficient weight given to its disadvantages and cost.