Consumer demand for Pension Wise has declined over the past couple of months as the cost of appointments has risen to £514 a session, new figures released by the government have revealed.

Latest statistics show there were 3,205 appointments made in December, down from 6,755 in October. This comes as the average cost of each appointment has now risen to £516.

When Pension Wise first launched, telephone sessions made up the bulk of the appointments. These were run by The Pensions Advisory Service.

However, Citizens Avice, which run face-to-face meetings, now account for 76.8 per cent of all the appointments, which is up from 41.7 per cent in April last year, when the service began.

The cost per appointment has risen by 4.2 per cent since November 2015, now standing at £516. Pension Wise is now estimated to cost the industry a total of £35m to run in 2015/16, with £4.7m being contributed by advisers.

A total of 383,571 savers accessed their pensions in the first six months of the freedoms, but over the same period, just 28,320 has a Pension Wise appointment.

Commenting on the figures, Hargreaves Lansdown head of retirement policy Tom McPhail said the availability of impartial guidance is an “important element of the pension freedoms”.

“Policymakers need to improve the take-up or to make sure suitable alternative solutions are in place. Any pension investor should be able to receive good quality guidance and support from their pension provider because this is where most of them turn to,” McPhail said.

“The latest data from HMRC and the FCA suggested that the initial bow-wave of pension freedom demand may now be receding, so perhaps in the next few months we’ll get a clearer sense of what ongoing investor activity may look like. Many of the initial transactions have been relatively small pots getting cashed out as a lump sum, which is not necessarily a bad thing.”

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