Am paying 1.7% charges on large investment pot. Is this too high?

gm0

Smith and Williamson.  Personally I wouldn't pass water on them if they were on fire.  I found them utterly useless.  Somewhere below SJP in Dante's inferno.  They lost interest in me in about 5 min (not enough wealth).  I encountered them as part of a corporate outplacement package some years ago.  In fairness they did (reluctantly) confirm my personally researched understanding of redundancy tax treatment.  The advice they seemed to be offering us was "buy our product - ah you are ineligible - not enough assets outside pension and primary residence - please sign here so we can collect our corporate advice fee. I was so angry about how useless it all was that I made a stink with the HR organisation about how THEY were being ripped off for this executive outplacement "risk management" financial advice by this extremely mediocre if well appointed outfit.  Still it only cost me a train ticket I got off lightly.

So here are my opinions re the fees @ 1.7% a bit rough and ready but the point is clear enough.

An IFA should cost no more than 0.5% ongoing at that pot size.  Zero on the way in.  A platform should be <0.2% (preferably a small capped fixed fee as a tiny % of your £1m).  There should NOT be another layer of fees - DFM.  (Circumstances may exist where this is helpful FOR YOU but i am struggling to think of what they are).  Let's assume there isn't one.
Portfolio management - You do it (0% + your opportunity cost of time in retirement) or the IFA does it within the 0.5%. 
If the IFA/Wealth Manager hands it off at your additional expense to another Portfolio Fund Manager organisation then you probably have the wrong FA/IFA.

Funds are to taste 1.5% down to 0.05% but an "average" sub 0.5% isn't unrealistic.  Could be less could be more.  Based on what you want to do with actives and passives, core/satellite funds etc.  My entire global equities holding is 0.07% at present though it will go up a bit when I diversify it a bit better. Figures below still assume 0.5% average fund cost.

Adding up without an IFA - below 0.4% - 0.7%.   a minimum of >1% less.  Which is 1% x 40 years retirement x half pot (assuming depletion) = 200k - 250k = a rip off built of layered fees and multiple hands in your pot with nobody that accountable. If S&W are providing ongoing advice then they have some accountability for due process but not for investment returns).

Or adding back in a more attentive genuine IFA it's 0.9% to 1.2% or thereabouts so 0.5%+ - >100k -160k cheaper than what you have now.

So yes - they are taking the proverbial.

As others have said DIY is not a small undertaking to gain confidence in what to do, what is knowable and what is not. 
But promoting fear of it is a widespread industry tactic to promote stickiness of funds under management.  Just look at all the lobbying going on to festoon further reform with more compulsory advice and sales opportunities. This is fed to the journalists by industry actors every time the latest pensions "crisis" hits the weekly media agenda.

For DIY a "good enough" solution without terrible mistakes is fairly easy to work through that delivers market returns (beta) for the equities component with low drag.  Better solutions more tailored to your needs are a lot more work.  And complete optimisation is impossible a priori for you as it is for them. 

I am not  anti-IFA - it is a good choice if you are not interested to learn about investment and drawdown sufficiently to DIY.  But shop carefully as when what you get is much the same underneath why overpay for it.  Audi vs Seat/Skoda.  Different prices, same parts bin (underlying holdings - gilts, equities).