Pay Class 2 NI contributions now rather than buy later?

SeekTruth

The only likely contracted-out period would be for a very brief stint as a civil servant (less than two years) back in the 1970's but we can't remember if she paid into the pension scheme then.

Contracting out only started in April 1978. Even if your wife contracted out for 2 years commencing April 1978 and was on above £6K or £7K at the time the RDA would only be about £10/wk. So, I think you can safely ignore the complication I've introduced.

For financial planning purposes it could be useful to know whether or not she has a deferred civil service pension. My (hazy) recollection of the time is that if you left the Civil Service with less than 2 years' service then you could (had to?) take a refund of contributions.

If we get an on-line pension forecast for her now, would that give enough detail to answer your question?

No, I don't think they do now. Going back a few years (2006?), the on-line pension forecasts did give the overall Additional State Pension then explicitly deducted the Contracted Out Deduction but for some reason they no longer provide this useful information:(