state pension amounts

saver861

excelpaul wrote: »

Sorry I meant to say 35 out of 39 years. Why does the edit function not work for me!!

lol, so it is 4 years then!!

In which case the £167 figure is almost certain to be incorrect. Many others out there might be looking at similar incorrect amounts!!

As for the edit function, I have just tested it on my earlier post and it works ok for me. Maybe if you go into the forum in a different browser to the one you are using, see if that makes a difference.

Contact forum support and they may have suggestions.

t0rt0ise

I don't understand my forecast. The beta things says as from 2015 I'm due £137.48 a week which is fair enough. But then says that I have 5 more years to pay NI. The first of those I'll be contracted out but then have 4 more years to make things up. But the amount it says I can get it to in 2020 is £148.93. I thought we were supposed to get £4.32 or so per year added.

green_man

My online statement was similar to excelpauls in that it said I have £179 entitlement or £151 if I contribute another 17 years!!. All this based on 33 years NI contributions, of which approx 15 would have been contracted out.

Chickereeeee

I would not trust the site at all. It says I cannot make up contributions for 2014-5 nor 2013-4 as they '...were more than six years ago'!

C

t0rt0ise

I just had a call from the state pensions people about my query of not getting the added £4.44 per year after 2016. Not a very useful call as he just said it's probably a mistake. He didn't have my details on hand at all so it was just a general comment from him which was basically a waste of time.

I shall wait until after April 2016 and see what it comes up with then and if it's still wrong I'll query it properly.

greenglide

I just had a call from the state pensions people about my query of not getting the added £4.44 per year after 2016.

So was this the Future Pension Centre (part of the Pensions Service of DWP) who rang?

The Future Pensions Centre at Tyneview Park do the "proper" forecasts, the new Beta service for the Starting Amount appears to be an HMRC service - it is HMRC who actually hold this data.

Have you had a forecast from them? If not get one.

If you are contracted out in you current employment your Starting Amount should not change between now and April. If you are not contracted out your Starting Amount will be increased by any S2P entitlement earned in the year ending April 2016.

You starting amount will increase by £155.65 / 35 (£4.44) for each full year you have contributions for until you reach SPa up to the full rate of £155.65. A forecast isnt needed for this.

Note that the £155.65 will increase each year from 2017 as will your starting amount.

LHW99

Well I have just managed to negotiate Verify, and have received a "forecast" of £192.66 a week, based on a) continuing to contribute to April 2016 and b) assuming I also continue to contribute until 2020.
However, it also says based on contrubutions to April 2015 the "forecast" is £194.24 per week.

Either of which numbers would be well more than I was planning on - and considerably more than their (paper) "forecast" of 22/04/15, which was £138.32.

As I have been contracted out for almost 20 years of 44 years I am particularly confused. As my SPA date is now 2020, I will have another 4+ years of non-contracted out NI.

Not sure whether to contact them now, as this is a beta service, or leave it until after April?

saver861

LHW99 wrote: »

Well I have just managed to negotiate Verify, and have received a "forecast" of £192.66 a week, based on a) continuing to contribute to April 2016 and b) assuming I also continue to contribute until 2020.
However, it also says based on contrubutions to April 2015 the "forecast" is £194.24 per week.

Either of which numbers would be well more than I was planning on - and considerably more than their (paper) "forecast" of 22/04/15, which was £138.32.

As I have been contracted out for almost 20 years of 44 years I am particularly confused. As my SPA date is now 2020, I will have another 4+ years of non-contracted out NI.

Not sure whether to contact them now, as this is a beta service, or leave it until after April?

Oh dear - this sounds like another mess.

I can't get on there so can't see my own figures. I do have the paper estimate which is correct - though I'm losing confidence whether it is or not!!

I would assume this beta service is only beta for the access - the data it is using presumably will be the same as the data for the paper estimates.

How it is then getting such different figures is not clear.

If your current starting amount is £138 then whatever you add after 2016 can only take you to the max £155. Where is the £192 and £194 figures coming from in that case?

In other words, how does someone with a starting amount lower than £155 actually increase a pension greater than £155 after 2016?

greenglide

Both the paper forecasts and the Beta service use the same data - they use the HMRC NPS (used to be NIRS2) system for this. There used to be a calculation engine which was used for this sort of thing and DWP had a forecast engine as well.

I would believe the paper version and the headline amount in the beta service seems to be right, it is when it tries to project it forward it seems to wobble. It seems not to have been tested very much - it must be a new style "agile" development which just chucks anything over the wall after a couple of weeks because the "scrum" has reached the end of the latest "sprint".

It is a very good way of producing software which is only partly working in a short time.

Ultimately you only get what you pay for!

saver861

greenglide wrote: »

Both the paper forecasts and the Beta service use the same data -

I did wonder whether they might be using a subset of the live data due to the system being beta and thus protecting the live data from potential corruption.

It might have given some reasoning as to why these figures are seemingly off the wall. However, if it is live data then its the software functionality that's in error, if these figures are indeed incorrect.

It does sound like people are getting figures that they will be in for a disappointment at a later stage!!

greenglide wrote: »

It is a very good way of producing software which is only partly working in a short time.

Yes but that part of the system should be pretty robust before it goes beta. From the sounds of it, that's not the case.