The group held its first meeting last week.

Chairman Angus Dale-Jones said it had been almost a day-long meeting of the nine people involved.

The group has released a document outlining how it will operate. Dale-Jones said it was important that the industry understood what it was doing.

The document notes that the new code is an opportunity for a step-change in advice conduct that would benefit customers and advice businesses.

“It builds on the extensive work already done by the current Code Committee. Through the consultation process, it presents all parties with an opportunity to be aspirational about how customers experience financial services and how appropriate advice can help.”

It said in preparing the code, the draft working group had the benefit of the work done on the current code.

But the scope had widened, it said, from an occupational code for AFAs to a service code capturing advice given by all individual advisers. The new code would be able to differentiate different types of advice.

The code must satisfy new requirements, too, to improve the availability and quality of advice – which it said were potentially contrary objectives – and conduct considerations would become more directly relevant.

There has been criticism of the lack of practising advisers on the group.

The document said that decisions would be made with appropriate consultation, including with the FMA, those who were representatives of the advice industry and those who were representatives of consumers.

“CWG members are not representatives of particular sectors, but sit on the CWG for their individual knowledge, skills and experience. All members are involved in monitoring the adequacy of all aspects of consultation.”

Consultation would likely include formal documents requesting submissions, roadshows, focus groups and online requests for views.

Consultation on concepts was likely in October and November this year and a preliminary draft was expected in March or April next year.

Consultation would be needed on how minimum standards should apply to the increased range of advisers, businesses and digital services; and to the different types of advice.

The group said it would need to consider the extent to which the standards of the existing code were relevant and the need for additional standards.

It would also need a methodology to determine where advice types or products justified changes to the minimum standards.

The group would have to ask whether any universal baseline competence standard was required, what transitional requirements would be appropriate and how ongoing training could be used to broaden skills as adviser roles evolved.

“The CWG will operate transparently. That does not mean publishing everything, but it does mean being open, in a timely fashion, about policy deliberations (including in the statutorily required impact analysis document) and progress. Similarly, the CWG encourages those involved in consultation to be publicly transparent too, especially on policy thinking.”