The future pension service hanging up

xylophone

It sounds like because I was contracted out for 7 years then I have 38-7 years full contributions which leaves me 4 years to make up. 

No - your 38 years are all years where you have made the appropriate contributions/received credits  to make them "qualifying years".

https://www.rights4seniors.net/content/qualifying-years

At some point between 1978/2016 you were contracted out of SERPS/S2P.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Earnings-Related_Pension_Scheme

In the SERPS years, you will have accrued virtually nil additional state pension. 

In the S2P years, the position was somewhat different 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Second_Pension

S2P gives all employees earning up to £32,592 a year (in 2011/12) a larger pension than SERPS, regardless of whether they are "contracted out" or not 

In your case, with a mixed contracted in/contracted out history, when you ceased contributions around 2015, you had accrued a full basic state pension and some additional state pension.

At inception of NSP,  a once only deduction was made from your  total ASP in respect of the  years for which you were contracted out.

This means that your starting amount was your full entitlement  at at that date.

It was less than a full NSP and you were some years short of SPA.

This gave you the opportunity to improve your starting amount up to (but not in excess of) a full NSP by making  NI contributions from 6/4/16 (voluntary if not earning the appropriate amount).

It seems that your starting amount was around twenty pounds short of a full NSP so that four more qualifying years would bring you up to the full amount.

Robert14

Can anyone help? My wife qualified for her NIRP in January 2022 when she became 66 years of age. She paid 3 years Class 3 voluntary contributions at the end of February 2023. The additional qualifying years have been added to her NI record which can be viewed on her online record. What happens next? Does the DWP send notification of the revised pension rate? What is the current timescale for the revised pension to be paid?

p00hsticks

Robert14 said:

Can anyone help? My wife qualified for her NIRP in January 2022 when she became 66 years of age. She paid 3 years Class 3 voluntary contributions at the end of February 2023. The additional qualifying years have been added to her NI record which can be viewed on her online record. What happens next? Does the DWP send notification of the revised pension rate? What is the current timescale for the revised pension to be paid?

Presumably she made the contributions after phoning HMR to get a reference ?
 Were they aware that she was over State Pension Age ?

My understanding is that HMRC now have to inform DWP that she has made the additional years up, and then someone in DWP has to manually recalculate the effect it will have on her state pension. From what I've gathered from past posts on these pages it can take many months (even before the current time when they are being overwhelmed with such requests), but it should be backdated to the point at which she paid the money over.

Robert14

Thanks. Yes she spoke to Pension Service, obtained reference from HMRC and the additional qualifying years are now shown on her online NI record. Just querying how long before DWP make the payment and if any notification is sent.

Robert14

Still no notification from DWP or increase in pension despite additional years purchased showing on NI account. Has anyone received their increase yet? What sort of timescale is involved please?

MACKEM99

Mine took less than 2 weeks.  Wife's took just over 8 weeks.  You get no notification you just have to keep looking at gov site.

p00hsticks

MACKEM99 said:

Mine took less than 2 weeks.  Wife's took just over 8 weeks.  You get no notification you just have to keep looking at gov site.

I suspect in your case you are simply talking about your NI contributions record being updated, whereas Robert14's wife is past State Pension Age and is waiting for an actual increase in their paid pension after making further voluntary contributions. 

Wurly

Has *anyone* successfully been able to phone and get a reference number yet?

I'm usually very persistant and don't mind calling back, but this is starting to really annoy me. I have tried and tried for the last 2 months without success.
In frustration i posted a check for one of my missing years, NI number written on the back and a covering letter. I'm crossing fingers, but not hopefull it'll get dealt with. 

If you have been successful please state here......give me some hopium!

Robert14

Thanks p00hsticks. That's correct, and still waiting.

Robert14

Incidentally, I have asked the same questions on HMRC customer forum to no avail. The administrator doesn't know if DWP issue any confirmation or not! So much for joined up government.