While 2016 was by no means an annus horrilbilis, it would be safe to say there were more backwards steps than forwards in terms of building confidence and certainty in pensions saving.

Last month Philip Hammond used his Autumn Statement to tinker with the money purchase annual allowance. This will be reduced from £10,000 to £4,000 from 6 April 2017. As would be expected, there is sensible reasoning put forward behind this policy, with the Government saying it will reduce the risk of people acting against the spirit of the pensions tax system by preventing a second round of tax relief.

There is of course the wider economic context, not least with debt set to peak at over 90 per cent of GDP in 2017/18. Capping the allowance will deliver an estimated saving of £360 million over five years from 2017/18, despite only three per cent of individuals aged 55 and over making defined contributions of more than £4,000 a year.

All sounds sensible? Not so much when you put this into context. The money purchase annual allowance was introduced in April 2015. The natural conclusion to draw when the allowance is reduced by 60 per cent after just 24 months is that pension policy is made up on the hoof.

This is not the only instance of pensions being easy prey for a tax take.

The process for giving relievable contribution status to an asset transferred to a registered pension scheme has been thrown into doubt. Providers relying on what they thought was an agreed process informed by discussions in 2007 between their trade body and HMRC are being denied claims for tax relief. Worse still, HMRC seems intent on retrospectively reviewing previous cases with a view to clawing back tax relief previously granted.

While HMRC may have a legitimate concern in this area where some valuations in support of asset transfers may be insupportable, its broad-brush approach clearly goes beyond trying to take action against a dishonest minority trying to cheat the system.

Revenue Scotland has also recently got in on the act. Unlike HMRC, it is of the view that land and buildings transaction tax (LBTT) is due where a person transfers a SIPP property from provider A to provider B. The regulator states that providers should not have practices that would result in consumers facing unreasonable barriers to switching but this stance is surely against, to use the Government’s term, the spirit of that intention.

Some of these matters may appear trivial. But collectively what sort of message do they send? It does not give me confidence to lock away savings until age 55 on the strength of yesterday’s promises.

Perhaps worse is still to come. The current pensions tax relief system managed to survive 2016 unscathed. But for how long?

While we will have to wait to see the Chancellor’s plans, we do know that April 2017 will see the introduction of the Lifetime ISA, first announced in the 2016 Budget. Time will tell whether this will be a companion savings vehicle to the long-established pension or a Trojan horse replacement.

You would think there was never a more important time to focus on long-term pension policy. There is no doubt that the risk of a retirement shortfall now lies with the retiree rather than the employer, as defined benefit schemes will soon be a memory from a bygone era. Even if you are one of the lucky few with benefits still under a defined benefit scheme their financial state makes gloomy reading, with 77 per cent of schemes being in deficit to the collective tune of £265.2 billion.

With 10 million workers estimated to be newly saving or saving more as a result of auto-enrolment by 2018 perhaps now presents an ideal opportunity for a radical shift in the pension agenda from short-term opportunism to a long-term, sustainable model that would encourage the masses to add to their workplace savings.

But not until pensions stop becoming the first call when there is a budget gap to plug will there be the level of confidence in the system needed to engage more to save for retirement. So my hope for pensions in 2017 would be a change in perspective from the policy makers.

To break the boom to bust cycle might require a change to who actually makes policy. This would be radical, but the Bank of England has shown with monetary policy the benefits that can be gained from passing power to a body independent of political control.

Eddie McGuire is managing director at @sipp