The Pension Freedoms were introduced in 2015 by Chancellor George Osborne and were hailed, at the time, as a “pensions revolution” and the biggest changes to pensions in a century.

Ever since then the jury has been out on whether they were a good idea. The jury is still sitting.

I do not think the clock can be turned back but data published by the FCA this week in its Retirement Income Market Data Report for 2020/21 highlights some areas of concern, not least of which seems to be the worrying level of DIY pension incompetence many pension savers are demonstrating.

It's worth remembering that the Freedoms effectively moved the UK from a fairly tightly-controlled, even restrictive market, to pretty much a pensions free for all. 

We’ve seen the rise of huge numbers of pension transfer scams and crooks tempted into a market which gives people the almost unbridled freedom to throw away their entire pension on some really bad moves, like moving their pension fund into a cash bank account paying almost zero interest.

Sure, it’s not all bad, but the warning signs are there. Many people clearly do not have a clue what they are doing and that's is not good.

Of most concern in the FCA data is the fact that 43% of people are withdrawing 8% of their pension fund a year. These people will very likely run out of money far sooner than they expected while government and the taxpayer will pick up the pieces eventually.

We may not be too far away from pension savers who have ‘looted’ their pension fund making claims to the government that they should not have been given the right to destroy their own pension fund. I can see the CMCs getting excited already.

It’s no surprise that the data also shows a drop in the number of people taking regulated advice on their pension. To be fair it’s only a small drop of 3% but it’s significant nonetheless.

Now you might think I have no faith in the great British public. That’s far from true but I do think that many of the people taking big chunks out of their pension each year do not fully understand the implications. Covid may be a factor recently but many of these trends have been in place for several years.

It’s no surprise the government is now pushing harder for people to be ‘nudged’ towards pension guidance when they are about to reach pension age. What is a shame is that this is not compulsory because that would make all the difference.

An 8% withdrawal rate is almost certainly unsustainable and the likelihood will be that many pension savers may have to return to the workforce in their seventies or later. That may be no bad thing as the country is short of workers in many key areas but it will not be what they planned, if indeed they did any planning.

The Pension Freedoms were a well-intentioned exercise in giving people more rights in accessing their pension pots. There were some valuable reforms and we should not go back to a pre-2015 world but allowing people to ransack their pension early benefits no-one.

Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a journalist with 40 years of experience in finance, business and mainstream news. This topical comment on the Financial Planning news appears most weeks, usually on Fridays but occasionally other days. Follow @FPT_Kevin