There is something about the way the Coalition Government are announcing policies that reminds me of one of those TV chefs at work. “And here is something we prepared before the programme began,” you can hear them say, producing their latest dish without a hint of how the custard was lumpy first time.

The problem is, of course, you can work hard to get things right but on a day when the oven has a mind of its own and the milk is off, it doesn’t work out as well. Instant whip makes neither the best dessert, nor the sanest legislation.

Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare to work proposals are a case in point. The core idea, developed during IDS’s time as Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice is to make work pay by phasing out unemployment benefits rather than stopping them abruptly once an individual gets a job.

The reasoning is impeccable. The participation tax rate (the amount of income lost by a claimant taking a low paid job) can be as high as 90 per cent. So many people turn down such jobs, or simply don’t apply for them, because it doesn’t make sense as they see it, “to work for nowt”.

The other key obstacle is the marginal tax rate, which is 70 per cent or more for the majority of low earners. This deters people from going for better paid jobs or working longer hours because they know that losing their working families tax credit and paying more tax will simply not make it worthwhile.

So IDS wanted a system in which households could keep more of their benefits before they were phased out. If this were introduced alongside the new Work Programme he reasoned, it would provide the pull to take people to work, whilst the Programme itself might be the push that makes the difference. The problem is, it costs.

Now it seems the Treasury has declared such benefits largesse strictly off the menu. Where to from here? Means testing child benefits to provide more people with an incentive to work has been mooted, but this won’t be popular.

IDS argues that getting people into work generates revenue from income tax and VAT, but the Treasury seems none too keen to take this into account.

In another policy area, Pensions Minister Steve Webb has come up with a creative concoction. I heard him talk about it some months ago, so I know the idea has been well mulled over.

Webb suggests that pension funds should allow individuals to take their money out early. “Raiding your pension for career development,” you could call it.

He reasons that people who want to use their pensions in this way or to start up a new businesses should be allowed to do so. Such changes may help extend working lives, he argues.

This idea would of course mark a significant change in the essential concept of a pension. Add it to the fact that the Coalition is calling ‘time’ on the compulsory annuitisation of personal pension pots at 75 and something pretty interesting starts to emerge.

From pension schemes with rigid rules determining when entitlements to benefits fall due, one may in future have funds allowing one to draw money earlier or later as the exigencies and opportunities of life demand.

But this needs time to chew over. I can’t help thinking that a fund to allow one to make mid life career changes would be an excellent thing but I am less certain about raiding one’s pension for it.

Whilst mid career funding may be helpful for enterprising risk takers, it might be better not to offer such liquidity to ordinary mortals who could simply use it to fill their need for credit.

If we want people to invest in pensions for their retirement, offering them the chance to cash it all in for a world cruise, hardly seems sense.

Yet another idea comes to my attention – the inflation proofing of pensions in payment. This gets a bit technical, but since 1997 the minimum annual inflation protection provided in any defined benefits pension scheme has been the lesser of the increase in the retail price index (RPI) and 5 per cent.

The Government now plans to alter this, using the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) index  instead of the RPI as the floor of inflation proofing.

I don’t recall seeing this mentioned in either of the parties’ manifestos, though I suspect the idea has been in preparation a while.  Steve Webb defended it in public recently but my scepticism endures. Surely, they can’t be planning to serve this up, just like that!

I can’t see it as anything other than a way of reducing costs. Public sector pensions are a prime target for cuts and altering the basis of their inflation protection is clearly one strategy.

It is an example of how public sector cuts will affect the private sector too.

But at a stroke, once this change comes about, the Government will have reduced the present and future earnings of millions of pensioners. The plan, it should be remembered, sits alongside the Government’s policy to reinvigorate retirement and increase the investments which people make in pensions and savings.

The change will slowly but surely make pensioners worse off. Accountants KPMG have said the lower level of protection could reduce companies’ pension liabilities by 10 per cent, or about £100bn.  

Pensioners’ retirement incomes could be hit by up to 25 per cent as the years of lower level increases build up.

This all comes at a time when companies have been putting less into company pensions anyway. Figures from ONS show employers paid £40.6 billion into company pensions in 2008 - but workers paid in £42.5billion.

More will certainly be needing to work longer – though whether they get the chance is the issue.

I sent Steve Webb a copy of TAEN’s evidence on the consultation undertaken by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, recently. The question, “Is business ready for an ageing nation?” seemed as relevant to the DWP as the BIS and an important part of the reinvigorating retirement or extending working lives menu.

As for my views on the cooking, I make no comment at this stage. In any event, it will be your job to pass judgment in May 2015. Over cooked, half baked or simply parfait, you will decide!