UC switchover - not being credited NI contributions? 3 October 2022 at 1:50PM edited 3 October 2022 at 2:02PM in Benefits & tax credits 9 replies 332 views

Cube87

Hello, today out of interest I logged onto my government gateway account to check my National insurance contributions, I was slightly concerned that the past tax year ‘2021-2022’ there was no information available on my contributions despite being on UC during that time.

 Checking the NI contributions online it states for the past several years my NI was paid in full due to being on ESA, however in December 2021 I voluntarily switched over to UC.

I phoned up HMRC to double check and they confirmed they haven’t received any notifications from the DWP I’m actually on Universal credit hence not being credited NI contributions. I was advised to contact the DWP which I did this afternoon, the UC advisor on the phone has left my query on my journal for my ‘case manager’ to contact me by the 25th October, hopefully the error is rectified without any delays. Just wanted to make those on UC aware just in case this may be a widespread error.

Alice_Holt

There have been a number of previous threads on this topic, and it appears to be a widespread issue with UC as apparently DWP 'manual intervention' is required.

I understand that DWP are concentrating on UC claimants currently nearing SP age, so (unless you are in that cohort) don't expect an early resolution.

Possibly worth making your MP aware that you are experiencing this issue.

Cube87

Thanks for your reply Alice, I’m decades away from state retirement age so no pressing concern there, but can I assume any missing NI contributions from UC will eventually be backdated/issued once the DWP get around to correcting the issue? Or is it a case if you don’t try to rectify the issue yourself those previous missing NI contributions for that particular year(s) won’t be applied and you don’t get them?

If nothing is done I will contact my local MP. Thanks again. 

NedS

Cube87 said:

Thanks for your reply Alice, I’m decades away from state retirement age so no pressing concern there, but can I assume any missing NI contributions from UC will eventually be backdated/issued once the DWP get around to correcting the issue? Or is it a case if you don’t try to rectify the issue yourself those previous missing NI contributions for that particular year(s) won’t be applied and you don’t get them?

If nothing is done I will contact my local MP. Thanks again. 

You are correct in thinking that missing NI credits should be automatically credited once DWP fixes the issue, because you are lawfully entitled to them, but I wouldn't count on anything at this point, so keep good records and monitoring the issue is about all you can do for now.

My concern is that this just does not seem to be a priority for DWP at present, and with further cuts coming, fixing it may slip further down the priority list.

Some have managed to get a resolution whereas others have been completely stonewalled. Your two best options are:

(1) to file an official complaint

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/complaints-procedure

https://makeacomplaint.dwp.gov.uk/

(2) Contact your MP

which may or may not result in a timely resolution.

I have tried both, and have been completely stonewalled, fed the standard response that they are working on an automated fix and prioritising those closest to state pension age.

Cube87

Thanks for your reply Ned, frankly I’m bewildered how despite the many many years of planning and implementing UC they miss out the basic fundamental aspect of applying NI credits to claimants?

Thanks for the advice and links, I will wait for any response from the DWP, if not I will put in a complaint and get my local MP involved. Thanks again.

NedS

Cube87 said:

Thanks for your reply Ned, frankly I’m bewildered how despite the many many years of planning and implementing UC they miss out the basic fundamental aspect of applying NI credits to claimants?

Thanks for the advice and links, I will wait for any response from the DWP, if not I will put in a complaint and get my local MP involved. Thanks again.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

I don't know the technical details, but essentially DWP and HMRC have many disparate IT systems, that each perform their own set task. Some are really old, others far more modern (e.g, UC). Many were never really designed to share information, with a few exceptions such as UC sharing an RTI data feed for earnings from HMRC which works very well. I have no idea how the sharing of NI contributions entitlements works, but DWP systems will provide that information to HMRC who would then apply the credit as appropriate to a persons NI record.  Somewhere that process has become broken (or never worked reliably?). The scale of the breakage and the number of people affected is unclear from the information DWP have disclosed. Fixing it at an individual level requires manual intervention which DWP are reluctant to do unless someone is approaching state pension age. DWP say they are working on a fix - presumably this will (a) fix the issue moving forward, and (b) allow automated retrospective correction of all previous cases. My understanding is they simply have not deployed sufficient (or any?) human resources to fix cases manually where people have identified the issue and made a complaint, hence the canned response about working on fixing the issue and not to worry if you are not close to state pension age.

We have seen quite a few cases here on MSE, and I suspect that is just the tip of the iceberg. What concerns me is that this has the potential to degenerate into a national scandal if it is not fixed properly - most claimants have no clue about NI conts and state pension entitlement. Many would be totally unaware if their state pension were lower because they had missing NI years due to conts not being applied when they should have been. There is the potential for very large numbers of people to be underpaid their state pension entitlement.

calcotti

NedS said: There is the potential for very large numbers of people to be underpaid their state pension entitlement.

Or to be mislead into paying for additional years of contributions which they don’t actually.

I would encourage anyone affected to inform their MP. If awareness amongst MPs increases  perhaps the relevant committee can then put pressure on DWP.

rangout

I'm not buying DWP's "we're working on it excuse". They've known about this problem long before lockdown, but they're still not officially acknowledging there is a problem

The manual fix is barely working now, but what about in 5 years time when there are more pensioners who have been claiming UC for longer? It will take more time to process each claim

NedS

rangout said:

I'm not buying DWP's "we're working on it excuse". They've known about this problem long before lockdown, but they're still not officially acknowledging there is a problem

The manual fix is barely working now, but what about in 5 years time when there are more pensioners who have been claiming UC for longer? It will take more time to process each claim

My understanding is that the "fix" they are working on will be to correct the issues that are currently preventing the data from being transferred automatically. I don't think there is any intention to ever have to fix a large number of claims manually, but rather to ensure that the data is able to be exchanged cleanly between DWP and HMRC.

Given how many claims are potentially involved, resourcing a team of people to manually identify affected claims and fix them is a non-starter. Far better some clever software bod comes up with a preferably automated solution to allow the two systems to exchange the required data.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

NedS said:

Cube87 said:

Thanks for your reply Ned, frankly I’m bewildered how despite the many many years of planning and implementing UC they miss out the basic fundamental aspect of applying NI credits to claimants?

Thanks for the advice and links, I will wait for any response from the DWP, if not I will put in a complaint and get my local MP involved. Thanks again.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

I don't know the technical details, but essentially DWP and HMRC have many disparate IT systems, that each perform their own set task. Some are really old, others far more modern (e.g, UC). Many were never really designed to share information, with a few exceptions such as UC sharing an RTI data feed for earnings from HMRC which works very well. I have no idea how the sharing of NI contributions entitlements works, but DWP systems will provide that information to HMRC who would then apply the credit as appropriate to a persons NI record.  Somewhere that process has become broken (or never worked reliably?). The scale of the breakage and the number of people affected is unclear from the information DWP have disclosed. Fixing it at an individual level requires manual intervention which DWP are reluctant to do unless someone is approaching state pension age. DWP say they are working on a fix - presumably this will (a) fix the issue moving forward, and (b) allow automated retrospective correction of all previous cases. My understanding is they simply have not deployed sufficient (or any?) human resources to fix cases manually where people have identified the issue and made a complaint, hence the canned response about working on fixing the issue and not to worry if you are not close to state pension age.

We have seen quite a few cases here on MSE, and I suspect that is just the tip of the iceberg. What concerns me is that this has the potential to degenerate into a national scandal if it is not fixed properly - most claimants have no clue about NI conts and state pension entitlement. Many would be totally unaware if their state pension were lower because they had missing NI years due to conts not being applied when they should have been. There is the potential for very large numbers of people to be underpaid their state pension entitlement.

And DWP do already have form in this area and from a few posts on the Pensions board not one they are resolving swiftly!