During the course of a discussion on Mr R. C. B. Lane's paper, ‘The Dissolution of a Superannuation Society’, presented to the Institute on 24 January 1949, Mr V. A. Burrows enunciated the dictum that a consulting actuary's function, in connexion with friendly societies and pension funds, was primarily an educative one. In his view, it was the actuary's duty to explain and expound the mysteries of his craft so that the laymen who formed committees of management, trustees, local authority finance committees—whoever his clients were—should obtain some grasp of the actuarial principles of their particular funds.

Most consulting actuaries would probably agree with this definition of their task. Their clients can generally give only superficial and spasmodic thought to their own funds, since their primary attention will be devoted to their own trades or businesses. The consulting actuary, on the other hand, meets a succession of technical and administrative problems bearing on friendly societies and pension funds, and in course of time he should be able to exercise wide judgment in these matters. Trustees and committees of management of pension funds should come to feel that they can turn to their actuary for guidance on all points of difficulty whether these are of principle, policy or administration.