Nearly all regional committee officer posts at two local branches, Plymouth & Cornwall and Central Scotland, are vacant.

All officer positions at the Plymouth & Cornwall regional committee are empty.

There are also substantial vacancies in three other committees: Stamford, Surrey and Sussex.

Details of the vacancies and the reasons for them have yet to be confirmed by the Personal Finance Society which has been asked for comment.

A spokesman for the parent body the CII denied there have been mass resignations from PFS regional committees and said only one resignation has been received in the past week.

Financial Planning Today understands that some of the posts have been vacant for some time, months in some cases.

The PFS has 26 regional committee stretching from North Scotland to the South West of England which run local events and committee meetings for the PFS’s 40,000 members around the country. They are mainly run by PFS members who volunteer as committee officers.

There are signs the dearth of committee officers may be a protest about PFS parent body the Chartered Insurance Institute’s intervention in the PFS board but there has been no confirmation of this.

The PFS and CII are involved in a bitter dispute about the future direction of the PFS and the governance of the PFS board. The CII has appointed three new CII directors to the PFS board and plans to take the majority of board positions by February.

Many PFS Past Presidents and members have protested about the move by the CII and have accused the CII of trying to take control of the PFS board for financial reasons.

The CII has denied this and says that there have been many governance failings on the PFS board and it is acting in the best interests of PFS and CII members.

• Editor's Note: In earlier versions of this story we referred to recent 'mass resignations' however we are happy to make clear that PFS regional committee resignations have taken place over many months, resulting in a large number of vacancies, but only a small number of resignations are recent.