Tan Suee Chieh’s Post

I am sorry Tan Suee Chieh but I disagree. In a world where there is so much bias and discrimination (and we sadly see the repercussions on our TV news screens every day) I believe it is up to the key societal institutions (including the professions) to embrace a commitment to equality and inclusion for all. This moral imperative transcends, in my view, the reasonable desire for freedom of opinion / speech. To be a member of a profession (including the actuarial profession) should require a commitment to professional and ethical behaviour which has at its core a clear recognition of the fundamental equality of all humanity.

I have a more serious concern and that is the LACK OF CONTROLS around submissions. I have just made a second submission from D.Uplicate FAKE, the famed Duplicate Reponse Creator. Given that there are no checks like email address, ARN number etc. how can the IFoA prevent abuse of the responses from third parties wanting to push a particular agenda by either not giving their names/job titles or using the identity of a known Actuary and filing in on their behalf. I made a genuine response under my own name and didn't receive an email response, so how would they know.

Tan Suee Chieh thank you for posting this and thanks everyone for their comments below, particularly the debate between Paul Teggin and Charles Cowling who both make some very reasonable and helpful comments. The more we read this and think about this, the more difficult it becomes to have a clear view as to how to respond. I have been much closer to Suee Chieh's feelings than to Charles's and the real difficulty here is that I think we all think we agree on the virtue of promoting diversity equality and inclusion - the diversity of thinking and behaviour is going to make our world a better place. The dividing line is between those who think that the way we achieve it is through the activity of our professional and other bodies in doing this promotion and those who think that the obligation should be placed by that profession on its individual members. At the end of my assessment of these hundreds (thousands maybe) of comments here and on other social media platforms, my leaning is with Adrian Pinington's helpful comment and I do feel that we would have much more to gain by a solid promotion of DEI at the heart of our professional bodies rather than almost delegating that responsbility back to our members through the code.

Tan Suee Chieh I am not as well versed in the nuances of this as I wish I was, and I don’t really have the time to spend on the issue but I am uneasy at the suggestion that the Profession is mandating a particular political/philosophical/cultural viewpoint. I probably happen to share a personal philosophy closely aligned to DEI principles but I can accept that others hold different moral beliefs from mine. Have I got the gist of your argument right? Who is actually driving this rapid change? How can it be slowed down?

I am in no means well versed in this conversation Tan Suee Chieh so help me understand the issue. From my perspective, if you are in a position of power, as most of us would be as a member our esteemed profession, is it too much to help advocate for others who are not? I am talking about giving space for a marginalised voice and making sure there is representation. What am I missing that is worth opposing?

I agree Suee Chieh. I’m not sure where to sign the petition….

Without commenting on the merits of the proposed change. On multiple issues now I have observed a pattern where a consultancy has shown significant push back on the fundamentals of the proposal from the members, only for the same proposal to be re-proposed with immaterial updates months later. This in my opinion is an abuse of process. To engage in these issues is time consuming for the members who have many other priorities demanding their time, having to watch out for repeated volleys of over-reach from the executive and council is a strange reality we find ourselves in.

Like Tan Suee Chieh and checking all my privileges, I support diversity, equity and inclusion. But the issue here isn’t whether DEI is good or bad. It’s whether a learned professional body should compel and constrain the behaviour and speech of its members, inside and outside their professional activity, on any issue that hasn’t been definitively settled in society at large. DEI anywhere in the Actuaries’ Code would be not only a huge regulatory overreach, but a denial of the principles of free enquiry and debate that underpin the IFoA’s existence. DEI as part of the integrity principle would be an insult to members who (for example) hold to equality of opportunity rather than equity of outcome.

Further thoughts on this difficult topic: - All discrimination (whether tribal or individual) is fundamentally and deeply wrong - We don't all strive for harmony. The world is not a harmonious place. - If there was no discrimination there would be no need for rules on equality. - Being a member of a [the actuarial] profession should rightly hold us to higher standards than the minimum required by law. - My employer was very happy to support the introduction of these reasonable proposals.

This debate is being conducted in a refreshingly open, clear and respectful way. One issue that has come out well that some may not have appreciated before is the ‘equality or equity’ issue (the DEI proposals revolve around the dangerously inequitable concept of equity, not equality). Another issue that has surprisingly not emerged is the problem that the actuaries’ code will apply to actuaries in their personal lives, outside work. Why should any actuary sign up to a code that puts them at material risk of being disciplined for voicing their disagreement with (for instance) Scotland’s 24 genders, or taxpayer-funded transitioning, or anti-meritocratic discrimination in favour of the less able? (The point being that such matters, irrespective of their validity, must be contestable in a free society.) And why should actuaries fund the IFoA to pursue such anti-free-speech impositions? The conjunction of the vagueness of interpretation of DEI, current societal trends towards a tribal, group identity victimisation / grievance culture (noting the new ‘speaking up’ point in particular), and applicability of the code to actuaries’ personal utterances surely makes it untenable.