SAGA — Doing things properly

New pension rights for women

Regulations passed by Parliament have finally put into effect judgments made by the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights over the past 10 years

Under the new regulations, women can backdate their pension scheme membership to the time they joined a company - though they cannot backdate before April 1976.

They must fulfil three conditions. These are to have worked part-time at some stage between April 8, 1976 and 1995, to have been denied access to their employer's scheme because of this, and they must still be working for the same employer or have left them within the past six months. This last condition will scupper many claims.

The Government Actuary has estimated that the latest regulations could give 275,000 more women the right to join their employers' schemes. That is on top of the 40,000 who have already registered claims with the Employment Tribunal but which have been held up, pending the new law.

Pension justice will cost claimants

Part-time women workers wanting to join company pensions face a major difficulty - cost. Although employers will pay the contributions they would have made to the scheme for the backdated years, employees must cover contributions they would have paid. In some cases this could cost nothing because certain companies run non-contributory schemes - the employer pays all the costs. But for many others, the expense of paying contributions going back years will be prohibitive.

The Government Actuary thinks 'average' part-timers will pay about £2,500, after deducting a small refund normally due from National Insurance. The typical benefit they would each receive has been put at £10,000 after retirement.

In order to assess the payments due, employers must pay for records going back almost 30 years. Some won't have those records, and HM Revenue & Customs is receiving enquiries about the records it holds.

Part-time women workers' pensions: The next steps

Any woman affected by the incoming part time work pension changes should consider if she now has the right to join a scheme retrospectively or extend her current membership back to when she started work for that employer - or April 6, 1976 if that is later.

The new rules introduce a concession for people who were on a series of short-term contracts with the same employer. Previously it was thought that each contract had to be claimed separately and the six-month deadline for each past contract has now lapsed.

The new regulations allow people in this position to claim for all short-term contracts as long as they are still with the same employer - either on continuing short-term contracts or as regular employees. They can also claim if they have stopped such work within the last six months.

If you think you have a claim, write to your employer saying that you want to join the pension scheme for those years before 1995 under the Occupational Pension Schemes (Equal Treatment) (Amendment) Regulations 2005.

For help with your claim, a trade union is the best option. If you are not in a union, you could contact the Equal Opportunities Commission on 0845 601 5901, the Arbitration Service ACAS on 08457 47 47 47, or your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

However, hundreds of thousands of women who failed to meet an arbitrary time limit or who cannot now pay back the missing contributions are still left without pensions, which the law should have allowed them all along.