The latest FCA data on complaints does not make comfortable reading for advisers and providers, particularly those involved in giving advice on pension decumulation and annuities.

Unfortunately these are just the big growth areas in financial advice.

The latest FCA complaints report on the first half of the year reveals a 20% rise in complaints about decumulation and pensions.

We’re not talking about small numbers

There were nearly 15,000 more complaints about decumulation and pensions in the first half, compared to a year earlier. In fact the total number of complaints about this sector rose to nearly 88,000.

Complaints about annuities also soared, by 70% to nearly 8,700. So what’s going on?

Unfortunately the FCA data does not give us many clues. The regular report is about data on complaints in financial services (up 5% in the first half to an astonishing 1.88m), not the reasons for those complaints.

Despite all the rises in pensions (and investment), there are actually fewer complaints overall compared to 2018/19 but that’s mainly due to the ending of complaints about PPI.

The worrying fact is that complaints about more complex areas of financial advice, such as pensions, investments, decumulation and the like are rising inexorably. That’s a concern for the Financial Planning and financial advice sectors because it will inevitably drive up costs.

One clue about what's happening came from the FSCS this week.

The FSCS has issued a warning about the risks to consumer from so-called ‘pension consolidation’.

Some consumers are convinced that what they really need is pension consolidation. Putting all their pensions in one place. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t but I suspect what most really need first is good advice on retirement planning. Just shifting pensions from one provider to another without assessing costs, charges and pension strategy overall is pretty daft.

The FSCS cites cases of some pretty dreadful advice given to people who were convinced that pension consolidation was what they really needed, or perhaps rather someone else convinced them. Some of the advice given by the ‘advisers’ involved was truly atrocious and they need to be punished.

With this in mind, it’s no wonder complaints are up and advisers will have to exercise much more care. Responding robustly to the Consumer Duty will help.

I can’t help thinking too about all those PPI claim firms. Where did they go? I wonder if they have found a new pot of honey in the pensions sector?

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• An earlier version of this comment article referred to the data as coming in part from the Financial Ombudsman Service. In fact the data is purely from the FCA. This has now been corrected. Apologies for the error.

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