There was a time when the professional body sector was reassuringly dull. An oasis of calm, grey in a sea of volatile and excitable financial services.

I suspect that eyes were rolling this week at the Department for Work and Pensions when Pensions Minister Laura Trott announced that Pensions Dashboards, originally due to begin in a test form this year, were being pushed back to 2026.

The issue of vulnerable clients has become something of a hot potato in recent years so it was good this week to see some pleasing progress in the Financial Planning and financial advice arenas.

We are often told that financial services is a boom sector and in many ways it is, employing over 1m people and bubbling with innovation and enterprise, but does all this activity mask the fact that in one key measure the sector is actually shrinking?