HM Treasury has released its Preston guidance for August 2026, providing earnings and interest factors for employers. These factors are used to facilitate retrospective access to occupational pension schemes for part-time workers.
The guidance follows rulings by the European Court of Justice and the House of Lords in 2000/2001. These rulings favoured part-timers gaining retrospective access to occupational pension schemes, provided they meet the necessary legal requirements.
The Preston factors are designed to offer those entitled to reinstatement an opportunity to gain pension service at an actuarially fair cost. The aim is to ensure these individuals are, as far as possible, no better and no worse off than if they had paid contributions to the scheme when they were originally employed.