State Pension: too many qualifying years?

TooMuchSloeGin

I moved to Britain in 1997 and started to work immediately. I have built up an almost full NIC record till 2015, according to the gov.uk pension forecast website (one year shows as a gap but I could top this up). If I count the years, this comes up as 17 full years and 1 gap year so far. However, according to the government website I have 20 full years. This is a rather puzzling figure as I moved to the UK in 1997 and though I worked and contributed all the time (excepting that one gap year), I can't possibly have 20 full years?!

I've googled top, left, right and bottom to find out why I should have 20 full years, but w/o success. Has anyone got an idea how and why the government should arrive at such a figure?

molerat

The years age 16 - 18 are awarded FOC. Many immigrants who arrived later have also been automatically awarded these as it was easier and cheaper than investigating who was actually entitled. The on line system should show the years that are covered.

Muscle750

So the rest of us have got to actually work them yet they were given free to people from overseas ...........................beggars belief

GunJack

Muscle750 wrote: »

So the rest of us have got to actually work them yet they were given free to people from overseas ...........................beggars belief

not exactly...everyone got the 16-19 years added automatically until about 2010-ish to cover for further education, it started when you needed about 45 yrs of NI for a full SP

bigadaj

Muscle750 wrote: »

So the rest of us have got to actually work them yet they were given free to people from overseas ...........................beggars belief

Sort of, probably comes from the lack of IT or perceived cost to benefit ratio. The problem was that the amount of work splitting out relatively small numbers of non uk born people may have cost more than simply adding the years, eventhough these years are accrued for a time that person wasn't even in the uk.

It is a bizarre scenario and has changed in the last few years.

missbiggles1

Muscle750 wrote: »

So the rest of us have got to actually work them yet they were given free to people from overseas ...........................beggars belief

No, the rest of us got them free as well.:D

Alter_ego

missbiggles1 wrote: »

No, the rest of us got them free as well.:D

Except those of us in work!

missbiggles1

Alter_ego wrote: »

Except those of us in work!

Well, if you must drop out of education early.:p:rotfl:

atush

Muscle750 wrote: »

So the rest of us have got to actually work them yet they were given free to people from overseas ...........................beggars belief

Once again you let your anti immigrant bias blind you tot he facts- EVERYONE used to get these 3 years (incl you) but since around 2010/12 no one does.

bigadaj

atush wrote: »

Once again you let your anti immigrant bias blind you tot he facts- EVERYONE used to get these 3 years (incl you) but since around 2010/12 no one does.

Yes, but don't you find it odd to get credits in a country you didn't even live in at the time, totally nonsensical really.

greenglide

It clearly made no sense giving the credits to anyone who wasnt in education or whatever the criteria were ate the time and therefore it is perfectly logical why they stopped.

However the wording of Muscle750's post was unpleasant at the least.