In the first quarter of 2010, Focus Solutions Group researched a broad range of financial advice firms to understand what preparations they had undertaken to transition their advisers to the Level 4 professional qualification as part of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) requirements. The short survey set out to ascertain what the firms' understanding was of the RDR, what progress they had made, what examination route they were thinking of taking and also what they anticipated the cost per adviser to be.

28 firms responded in total to the survey, ranging in size from a few advisers up to over 400. The survey was completed by individuals with a responsibility for their organisation's RDR programme and included job titles such as Training Resources Manager, Talent Manager and HR Manager.