The Chartered Institute of Insurance (CII) has admitted that the Personal Finance Society (PFS) was only given 15 minutes notice of the CII’s plan to appoint a majority of directors to the PFS board and that some members were not notified ahead of the release of the announcement.
Yesterday the CII Group board announced it intends to appoint a majority of directors to the PFS board citing ‘serious and significant’ governance failures.
It plans to appoint three institute directors to the PFS board with immediate effect – a move past PFS presidents dubbed “cynical”.
Health & Protection revealed this morning that an emergency PFS board meeting will be taking place and that PFS hierarchy were not informed of the CII move prior to it being announced.
The PFS also accused the CII of acting unilaterally and without its consent in its attempt to take control of the organisation.
Confirming this point, a CII spokesperson told Health & Protection that while not all PFS members received notification ahead of the CII’s announcement yesterday, bulk email delivery inevitably meant the precise delivery time of a communication can vary from recipient to recipient.
“Where it was indicated by our system that an email could not be delivered automatically a second attempt was made through another delivery platform,” the spokesperson continued.
The spokesperson also revealed that the CII board announcement was made by the CII’s CEO and that no notice was uploaded to the PFS website.
“The chief executive of the CII called Don MacIntyre, chief executive of the PFS, at around 9:45 to advise him that notice of the CII board’s decision would be formally served to the PFS Board at 10am in accordance with the PFS Articles of Association,” the spokesperson continued.
“All communications – website, email, social media – have all been from the CII. The PFS was not shown the CII communications before they were distributed.”