The CRP You Already Have
A practical guide to strengthening your Consistent Retirement Playbook (CRP)
NextWealth have partnered with Brooks Macdonald to publish this guide.
At NextWealth, we have been tracking the adoption of Centralised Retirement Propositions for five years. Throughout that time, noise from the press and the regulator has risen and fallen, prompting advice firms without a formal CRP in place to wonder if they ought to have one too.
When we started exploring CRPs in depth for this project, we had a hunch. Financial advice firms that consistently say they donā€™t have a CRP, and have no intention of implementing one, arenā€™t necessarily ignoring the underlying issue, or failing their clients as they approach and move into retirement. They are often just rejecting the label.
This guide puts that hunch to the test, and the data backs it up. Most financial advice firms already have a consistent retirement playbook. They call it their house view, their philosophy, their minimum expectations. The packaging differs. The intent is the same.
What matters isnā€™t what you call it. Itā€™s whether your clients receive consistent, high-quality outcomes within a range, wherever they sit in your firm, and whoever they work with. That is a harder question than it sounds. Retirement advice is complex. Advisers are individuals, as are the clients they serve. And the regulatory and commercial pressures on firms have never been greater, particularly as IHT changes to pension assets begin to bite.
Our aim with this guide is practical. We want to help you see what you already have, identify where the gaps are, and give you the tools to close them. Not to impose a bureaucratic framework, but to build the quiet confidence that comes from knowing your firm has this covered.
What is this guide useful for
Most financial advice firms already have a consistent retirement playbook. They just donā€™t call it that. Many donā€™t recognise how much of the hard work is already done.
This guide is to help you recognise what you have, identify whatā€™s missing, and strengthen the elements that matter most for your clients and your firm. CRP adoption is not uniform across the market. Our research identifies three distinct firm models, each with different starting points, different motivations and different things to gain from a more structured approach.
Who the guide is for
This guide is for anyone involved in shaping or delivering retirement advice within an advice firm.
That includes business owners and leaders thinking about consistency, risk management and future growth. But it is equally relevant for the advisers who sit with clients and turn a firmā€™s playbook into real-world decisions.
A consistent retirement playbook only works if the people delivering advice understand it, believe in it and can apply it in client conversations.
If you are responsible for designing, delivering or supporting retirement advice in your firm, this guide is for you.
Methodology
- Digital survey of 223 financial advisers offering retirement advice conducted during January and February 2026.
- Historic data from digital surveys of financial advisers in 2022, 2021 and 2020.
- Qualitative research based on 10 interviews with financial advisers and operations professionals representing a range of firm sizes and operating models, plus a compliance specialist and an outsourced paraplanning firm, conducted in January and February 2026
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Suggested citation
NextWealth & Brooks Macdonald. 2026. The CRP You Already Have. https://nextwealth.co.uk/research/the-crp-you-already-have/