An Academy of Life Planning perspective on Britain’s overdue reckoning
Last week, Michael Mainelli, Chairman of Z/Yen Group and former Lord Mayor of the City of London, published a sharp and timely intervention calling on the UK to stop avoiding international scrutiny and finally participate in the OECD PISA Financial Literacy Assessment.
His argument is simple — and hard to refute.
You cannot manage what you refuse to measure.
And you cannot credibly claim leadership while declining to sit the test.
At the Academy of Life Planning (AoLP), we broadly agree.
But we also believe this moment deserves a deeper conversation than the one currently unfolding.
Because while financial literacy testing is necessary, it is not sufficient.
And if we are not careful, Britain risks measuring the wrong thing — very precisely.
The awkward truth Britain has avoided
Since 2012, the OECD has offered countries the opportunity to participate in a global, standardised assessment of financial literacy among 15-year-olds, as part of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Four rounds have passed.
Britain has sat out every one.
As Mainelli rightly observes, this sits uncomfortably with our self-image:
- A global financial centre
- A fintech innovator
- A regulatory thought leader
- An exporter of financial services
Refusing to benchmark our population’s understanding of money while exporting financial complexity abroad is, at best, incoherent — and at worst, revealing.
The Government’s recent Financial Inclusion Strategy, which commits to exploring participation in PISA 2029, is therefore welcome.
Evidence matters. Baselines matter. Accountability matters.
But evidence of what, exactly?
What financial literacy tests actually measure
At their core, financial literacy assessments — including PISA — test applied competence in three domains:
- Mathematics
Interest, compounding, inflation, probabilities, cash flows. - Law
Contracts, obligations, rights, disclosures, redress mechanisms. - Economics
Trade-offs, incentives, risk, pricing, opportunity cost.
This is not trivial knowledge.
And Mainelli is right: when populations lack it, the consequences are systemic — mispriced mortgages, under-saved retirements, speculative manias, and eventually, taxpayer clean-ups.
From this perspective, the PISA financial literacy test really is — as he puts it — a stress test for society.
On that point, AoLP agrees entirely.
But here is the uncomfortable gap
Financial literacy tests are institutionally neutral, but conceptually narrow.
They assume:
- The system is broadly legitimate
- The problem lies in user competence
- Better navigation leads to better outcomes
What they do not test is whether people can evaluate:
- Whether a financial system is structurally trustworthy
- Whether incentives are aligned or conflicted
- Whether complexity is necessary or extractive
- Whether “compliance” produces good outcomes
- Whether money decisions serve life goals — or distort them
In short, they do not test judgement about the system itself.
This is not an oversight. It is a boundary.
Literacy is not agency
Calling this bundle of maths, law and economics “financial literacy” creates a subtle but dangerous illusion:
If harm occurs, the individual lacked literacy.
Yet history tells a different story.
Some of the worst financial harms in Britain have been suffered by:
- Highly educated professionals
- Numerate engineers and accountants
- Doctors, lawyers, and business owners
- People who passed every “literacy” test available
They were not undone by ignorance of percentages.
They were undone by misaligned incentives, opaque structures, and institutional power asymmetries.
Literacy helps you operate within a system.
It does not help you decide whether the system deserves your trust.
The missing dimension: life planning and human capital
From an Academy of Life Planning perspective, the most significant omission is this:
Financial literacy is taught as if money is the starting point.
But in real life:
- Money is a means, not an end
- Financial capital is derivative of human capital
- Most financial stress is rooted in life design failures, not arithmetic errors
There is no assessment of whether young people understand:
- How skills compound over a lifetime
- How income resilience often matters more than asset values
- How time, energy, health, purpose and relationships shape financial outcomes
- How to plan life first — and money second
This is not “soft” knowledge.
It is foundational.
Trust is the real issue — and the test doesn’t reach it
Mainelli closes with a crucial insight:
PISA tests are ultimately about appropriate reliance — about trust.
We would go further.
Financial systems only work when trust is earned structurally, not demanded procedurally.
Yet PISA does not ask whether students can:
- Detect conflicted remuneration
- Distinguish advice from sales
- Understand why regulation can fail
- Recognise when compliance masks harm
- Ask who benefits if a product succeeds — and who pays if it fails
Students are trained to be careful consumers, not sovereign evaluators.
That distinction matters more than ever.
So should Britain take the test?
Yes. Unequivocally.
Refusing to participate suggests either complacency or fear — neither of which is compatible with responsible governance.
A poor result would not be national humiliation.
It would be actionable intelligence.
But we should be honest about what the test can and cannot tell us.
Financial literacy testing can give Britain:
- A baseline of technical competence
- International comparability
- Evidence for curriculum reform
What it cannot give us is:
- Structural trustworthiness literacy
- Human-capital-first thinking
- Life planning capability
- Immunity to extraction dressed up as advice
The opportunity Britain should not miss
This moment offers a choice.
Britain can treat PISA 2029 as:
- A defensive exercise in reputational management
- Or a foundation for a more mature, life-first model of financial education
At AoLP, we see financial literacy as necessary but incomplete — a toolkit that must sit within a governing framework of life planning, human capital development, and structural awareness.
In that sense, we are not critiquing PISA.
We are defining what must come next.
Because the real question is not:
“Can people calculate interest?”
It is:
“Can people design lives where money serves human flourishing — rather than the other way around?”
If Britain is serious about inclusion, productivity, growth, and trust, then taking the test is only the beginning.
The real work starts afterwards.
A grounded invitation
If you’re a planner who senses that traditional financial planning no longer goes far enough—and that your clients need help navigating work, purpose, resilience, and reinvention as much as investments—then you’re already thinking like a Total Wealth Planner.
The Academy of Life Planning exists to support that transition.
Not by adding complexity.
But by restoring coherence.
Academy of Life Planning 