First came the jump in the ISA allowance in July 2014 from the old £11,880 (half of which could be held in Cash ISAs and half in Stocks & Shares ISAs) to a new £15,000 limit. Not only was the overall allowance increased but we can now invest that £15,000 how we see fit – fully into stocks and shares, fully into cash or any combination in between. In practice, this meant that for someone who only used Cash ISAs, this was a near tripling of their allowance i.e. triple the cash we can keep from the tax man. We can also now switch funds between the two ISAs as and when we see fit – reducing risk when we are uncertain of markets and cranking it up when cash doesn’t provide what we’re looking for.

Alongside this, the tax free allowances that have been used can be passed on to one’s spouse on death meaning they are no longer penalised with tax on their loved one’s interest in addition to their personal loss.

These combined changes were a gift of freedom, giving control back to taxpayers – we know best what to do with our hard-earned money. It was also an encouragement to save and a quiet way of appeasing the electorate’s concern about low savings rates – by allowing us to save more, we would be less likely to notice the lower savings interest rates.

Has all this worked? Is the UK responding to these changes? National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has evidence to suggest it has. The average monthly savings rate has jumped over the past year from 8.04 per cent to a ten-year high of 8.52 per cent – we saved an average of £113.77 per person each month in 2014/15 compared to £101.03 in 2013/14.

Further changes announced in the 2015 budget provide greater freedom to savers. From autumn this year, we can withdraw money from ISAs during the year and not be penalised with the loss of our ISA allowance. For example, if you add £5,000 to your ISA and withdraw £2,000, currently you would only be able to add another £10,000 but from autumn 2015, you will still be able to add another £12,000.

The biggest change from the 2015 budget was the creation of a personal savings allowance – from April 2016, a basic rate taxpayer will be allowed to earn £1,000 of savings interest completely tax free (£500 for higher rate taxpayers and £0 for additional rate taxpayers). This allowance means 95 per cent of savers will not pay any tax on their savings interest. Current savings rates barely reach 2 per cent and that’s only when we fix our savings for five years, so in effect, any basic taxpayer with £50,000 of cash savings earning 2 per cent per year would pay no interest regardless of where those savings were. These taxpayers need not worry about ISAs to reduce their tax bills. However, as interest rates rise, less of our cash can be shielded from tax in this way and ISAs will again become more useful as our savings income will rise. Although, I suspect politicians will use offers of savings allowance increases as a ploy for votes as they are currently doing with the personal income allowance.

After these further changes, the biggest beneficiaries of ISAs will be higher and additional taxpayers who have the most to gain from saving using ISAs as they have a lower or no personal savings allowance. Although the increased freedom is greatly appreciated, for the majority of taxpayers the appeal of Cash ISAs will fall dramatically.