Here we go again. Yet one more attack on the financial resources of the older generation and those who will soon be part of that generation.

This time it's on the pension schemes into which many of us have been paying for most, if not all, of our working lives.

The majority of us thought, naively I suppose, that our pension schemes were about as safe as it is possible to make anything which has to do with finances.

Then the Government decides to stick its little finger into the matter and commissions a report. That is seldom good news and it is certainly not in this case.

The report proposes the abolition of index linking for pension schemes, a move which will effectively erode the value of pensions as time goes by.

One quoted case shows a pension of £10,000 at today's value would be left with a mere £6,000 in 20 years' time and just £5,000 after 30 years.

That is assuming inflation goes no higher than 2.5 per cent. If, however, inflation rises - and given current thinking it seems inevitable that it will rise - if it were to reach 5 per cent the resulting figures would not make happy reading.

Calculations show the £10,000 would only be worth £3,000 after 20 years and a mere £2,150 after 30 years.

You may feel that is a long time span to see the melting of your hard-earned money but remember people are living longer these days and your pension has got to last you for however many years you are in retirement.

There are some four million workers in public service pension schemes who have been paying into private or public schemes and who have often put up with low-paid work in the knowledge that, when they retire, they will benefit from having squirrelled away some of their working income to cushion their later life.

But if this sort of recommendation is implemented it will become harder to recruit much-needed staff where there is already a dire shortage.

The only good thing about the plans is they would not be retrospective.

Alan Pickering, whose report this is, is the ex-chairman of the National Association of Pension Funds. He says it is better to reduce the value of pensions than stand by and see firms' pension schemes shut down.

He is quoted as saying that, because people are living longer, they may well have to go on working longer and make an increased contribution to their pension fund if they are to have any reasonable standard of living in their retirement.

There is also a proposal to scrap pay outs to widows who would normally expect to receive some sort of payment from their husband's scheme, thus leaving them with virtually no income or at the most a very small sum.

In the past there have been many pension schemes that pay a lump sum to the widow of a payer so that they at least have a sum on which they can rely.

This is also expected to be scrapped if the report is adopted.

If you are expecting to rely on a works pension, whether your own or your husband's, it may be time for you to start asking a few questions before inflation and Government interference starts to make inroads into your financial future.

At the moment index linking protects the value of twelve million company and public sector schemes and to scrap the link would save the Government millions.

Can the Chancellor resist such a glittering prize being dangled before him I wonder? It may save Gordon Brown money in the short term but the poverty that would almost certainly follow would almost certainly wipe out any long-term gains.