Why do I not get regular statements for my NI contributions?

Chomeur

So to get the State Pension I have to have paid National Insurance contributions for at least 30 years. Yet the government never sends me a statement of what contributions I have made. How's this supposed to work? I retire and claim the State Pension and hope that HMRC has recorded as many years of contributions as it should have done. If there's a discrepancy I have to go back to my employer of 30 years ago to try to sort out what's happened? Yeah that's going to be easy.

The situation seems dire to me. Surely I should get a statement at least once a year automatically? I have just requested a statement and been told "It can take several weeks to prepare a statement of your National Insurance account" which is hardly impressive. Am I missing something?

I have been making contributions via direct debit as a self employed person, although I understand that this has recently changed and that in future I will pay them through my annual return.

London50

I think the main problem as normal with our great government departments is the fact that they do not "talk" to each other {reason unknown} therefore it will mean hiring yet another pen/key pushing bod to get all the info together for each and every "worker" in the UK, feed all that into some hole and hope it spits out the right answers.
Taking all things being equal and understanding that whatever party is in power they mess up the most simple of things so to then have thousands of people writing/texting/phoning to say that "xyz" info regarding their statement is incorrect you get meltdown. Far easier for them a short time before anyone is due to retire to sent the letter stating "you have worked and paid xxx years NI so will get yyy and if you believe this is wrong please contact us and we will look into it. That way they could have your money earning for them for another few week/months rather than it being in your pocket.
IMHO never try to work out how governments work the systems {or not} as it will have you drinking at least 3 bottles of wine and smoking 20 strong cigs per day by the time you can start to get your head round the rubbish they will tell you :0)

Chomeur

This is only one government department so they shouldn't need to do much talking!

I shall start asking them for a statement once a year and would advise anyone else to do likewise.

greenglide

That is something I have always wondered about, is seems logical and sensible to get a statement every year with the year's credits on it. Of course in the old days of employers sticking physical stamps on a card we didn't really need a statement and they wrote to you if there was a gap in contributions, they stopped doing this in the 1990s (I think it was part of the fall out from the NIRS system to the NIRS2 replacement).

To produce a complete statement of your NI record is another thing entirely though - the record has masses of data which the punter never sees around contracting out pension scheme membership etc. This is not simple.

MPD

You could use the state pension forecast although I'm not sure it is available to all at this moment due to the on-going changes in the state pension.

It tells you how many years NI contributions you have made and if you check annually you can see it going up every year, assuming you have worked enough.

System

With any other pension provider you would get a username and password and could log on to check your balance every week if you wanted.

Chomeur

MPD wrote: »

You could use the state pension forecast although I'm not sure it is available to all at this moment due to the on-going changes in the state pension.

It tells you how many years NI contributions you have made and if you check annually you can see it going up every year, assuming you have worked enough.

Tried it and here's what it asks:

"How many years have you worked and paid National Insurance contributions from the age of 19?

These are the years when you paid Class 1 with your wages, Class 2 if you were self employed or Class 3 if you paid voluntary contributions. Enter 0 if you haven’t paid National Insurance contributions. National Insurance credits will be automatically added for ages between 16 and 19 years old (if you’re eligible) - you don’t have to count them."

So that's no help.

Paul_Herring

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

With any other pension provider you would get a username and password and could log on to check your balance every week if you wanted.

Unless their name is Clerical Medical...

lejog2003

Chomeur wrote: »

Tried it and here's what it asks:

"How many years have you worked and paid National Insurance contributions from the age of 19?

These are the years when you paid Class 1 with your wages, Class 2 if you were self employed or Class 3 if you paid voluntary contributions. Enter 0 if you haven’t paid National Insurance contributions. National Insurance credits will be automatically added for ages between 16 and 19 years old (if you’re eligible) - you don’t have to count them."

So that's no help.

Is that the on-line calculator? I think you need to send off a BR19 to get your actual history. https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-statement

I think statements are available for everybody, although if you're nowhere near retirement age the forecast may be for the current state pension not the forthcoming pension.

greenglide

Is that the on-line calculator? I think you need to send off a BR19 to get your actual history. https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-statement

This is the "state pension calculator" which is neither use nor ornament! The site does give the alternative of a "state pension statement" which is only available to over 55s (so it says anyway). The statement is here https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-statement

The OP may find the HMRC National Insurance checker here https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record of some use. You complete an online form and the statement takes a week or two (mine did anyway).

DaveMcG

They are meant to write to you if, in any year, you haven't made sufficient contributions or haven't been credited with contributions. The letter gives you the opportunity to make voluntary contributions.

Its obviously cheaper to send out these letters than a statement to everyone, but clearly if there was a problem many years ago it is now difficult to resolve.