The R06 case studies are issued two weeks before the sitting and constitute the entirety of the factual material on which the paper will be set. The questions cannot introduce new information about the clients; they can only test the candidate's ability to interpret, analyse, and act on what has already been provided. The pre-release period should therefore be treated as the substantive part of the assessment, with the three-hour written paper functioning as a structured presentation of work already completed.
It is important to note at the outset that no notes, annotations or pre-prepared material may be taken into the examination. A fresh, unmarked copy of the case studies is provided on the day. Every piece of analysis undertaken during the pre-release period must therefore be internalised — committed to memory in a form that can be reconstructed quickly under timed conditions. The purpose of the framework below is to build that internalised understanding through repeated, structured engagement with the material.
Stage 1 — Comprehension and factual mapping
The first objective is complete factual command of each case study. Read both fact-finds in full without annotation to establish narrative context, then re-read systematically to extract and categorise the underlying data. Build, by hand, a structured client summary covering:
- Personal and family circumstances, including ages, dependants, state of health and employment status
- Income from each source, with marginal and effective tax positions calculated for each individual
- A full balance sheet: cash reserves, investments by tax wrapper, pension arrangements, property, business interests and liabilities
- Existing protection arrangements, including sums assured, ownership, beneficiary nominations and trust status
- Estate planning instruments already in place — wills, lasting powers of attorney, prior gifts, and any existing trusts
Reconstructing this summary from memory after a 24-hour gap is the test of whether the factual base has been adequately absorbed.
Stage 2 — Quantitative analysis
A consistent set of calculations underpins the majority of R06 papers. These should be worked through in full during the pre-release period so that the methodology, not the arithmetic, is what is recalled in the exam room:
- Income tax liability for each client, identifying scope for income equalisation, pension contributions or salary sacrifice
- Capital gains tax exposure on disposals contemplated or implied by the clients' objectives, with available annual exempt amount and any relevant reliefs
- Inheritance tax position on first and second death, applying the nil-rate band, residence nil-rate band, transferable allowances and any taper
- Pension annual allowance utilisation, including tapering where adjusted income exceeds the threshold, and available carry-forward
- Protection needs analysis benchmarked against liabilities, dependants' income requirements and the period of need
- Liquidity and emergency fund adequacy relative to committed outgoings
Where a business, partnership or trust features in the case study, parallel analysis should be conducted for that entity.
Stage 3 — Objective and risk mapping
Each stated client objective should be matched to the relevant factual and quantitative findings and assessed against the constraints visible in the case study — affordability, attitude to risk, capacity for loss, time horizon, and any regulatory or product limitations. Equally important are the issues the clients have not raised but which a competent adviser would identify: under-insurance, intestacy risk, beneficiary nomination gaps, inefficient asset location, or unaddressed estate planning exposure.
The output of this stage is a written rationale linking each issue to the underlying facts. The discipline of expressing the link in writing is what enables a focused, client-specific answer in the exam, as opposed to generic technical commentary.
Stage 4 — Structured recommendation planning
For each material issue, prepare a recommendation framework along the following lines:
- Recommendation — the specific action proposed
- Justification — the facts in the case study that make it appropriate for these clients
- Implementation — the product, wrapper, contribution level or structural change required
- Risks and alternatives — the trade-offs, downsides and reasonable alternative approaches
- Review — the trigger events and intervals for reassessment
Examiner reports consistently reward client-specific reasoning and penalise undifferentiated textbook content. A recommendation framed as "increase pension contributions" attracts little credit; the same recommendation expressed as "redirect £X per month into the workplace scheme via salary sacrifice to extinguish higher-rate liability, restore personal allowance, and utilise £Y of carry-forward from 2023/24" demonstrates the analysis the marker is looking for.
Stage 5 — Timed practice against historic papers
Past papers should be attempted under full examination conditions — three hours, no reference materials, no notes. The purpose is twofold: to test the durability of the analysis prepared in earlier stages, and to develop the time discipline required to allocate effort in proportion to the marks available. Self-marking against the published examiner reports identifies recurring weaknesses, which can then be addressed in the remaining preparation time.
Stage 6 — Consolidation
In the final days before the sitting, the focus should shift from generating new material to consolidating what already exists. Review the client summaries, the quantitative work and the recommendation frameworks repeatedly, with the explicit aim of being able to reproduce the substance from memory. Avoid introducing unfamiliar technical content at this stage; marginal additions rarely repay the disruption to material already absorbed.
R06 rewards candidates who arrive at the examination with a complete, internalised understanding of the clients and a disciplined approach to converting that understanding into structured, justified recommendations. The pre-release period is the work; the exam itself is the demonstration of it.