National Insurance credits for Charity Work

Phossy

Just a thought.

I see my wife working all hours of the day supporting the National Autistic Society and it is all voluntary. She is not the only one, there are thousands doing huge amounts of charitable work and it occurred to me that it may be appropriate that they got some form of NI credit for that work - the Country's way of saying thank you. It may also encourage more to do more.

As I say, just a thought.

eskbanker

Conceptually I suspect that few would have issues with the principle, but surely the essence of such voluntary work is that it's not administered in the conventional sense, so there's no realistic prospect of reliable and verifiable data being submitted to HMRC and other agencies?

xylophone

 I am assuming that your wife is under SPA and has no employment income?

Has she checked her state pension forecast?

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Phossy

I think there could be verifiable data. There is a huge administrative burden placed on my wife for sure that is all tracked by the parent Charity. Honestly the amount of beauacracy is akin to working for any large organisation. From what i see data could be generated if wanted/ needed.

Phossy

xylophone said:

 I am assuming that your wife is under SPA and has no employment income?

Has she checked her state pension forecast?

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Thanks for your concern. My wife has worked as a Teacher most of her life and then worked as a carer, all of which earned her NI contributions. She has a  DB due when she hits 60 and will get a near full state pension ( we will decide if we buy years soon) . This really isn't about us. 

xylophone

But if your suggestion were followed, people who retired with a pension but short of NI years and chose to fill their days with voluntary work would be entitled to credits and I do not see that they should be. They could well afford to make voluntary contributions.

Equally, those who chose not to be gainfully employed (not necessarily with a pension) would be entitled to such credits and I do not see that in a time of pressure on the public purse that they should be.

In essence, voluntary work is a choice of a "not for reward" activity?

Phossy

..and this is where we get to the crux of it -  Perceived value. Recent studies have shown the volunteer work adds > £300 bn to the economy (about 15 % of GDP). I think so many are blind to the extent of volunteering and it's value. It's the old addahe of knowing the cost, but not the value.

Marcon

Phossy said:

..and this is where we get to the crux of it -  Perceived value. Recent studies have shown the volunteer work adds > £300 bn to the economy (about 15 % of GDP). I think so many are blind to the extent of volunteering and its value. It's the old addahe of knowing the cost, but not the value.

The country would grind to a halt without its army of volunteers and unpaid carers, so I couldn't agree more strongly with your sentiment.

But (sorry!) it's your wife's choice to volunteer and she's presumably doing something she enjoys doing and from which she gains 'job' satisfaction. If she wants NI credits then she needs to claim benefits and start job hunting. Her choice, and at least she has a choice.

Phossy

@Macron No need to apologise. My wife is fine with her choices. It is me that is making the observation about the amount of volunteering work, the effort that goes in and the potentisl for NI credits to benefit them. I clearly should have made the point differently.  We are in a very fortunate position (2 DB, 2 SP that leave us both very comfortable as a couple or individually). I see many who are not and I make no assumptions on their choices. 

hugheskevi

A lot of charities are very small, often run largely by either an individual or a very small group of people, particularly charities reliant on unpaid roles.

There are already a lot of compliance requirements on UK entities, eg, things like mandatory pension contributions, minimum wage, entity registration with HMRC, charity compliance requirements, insurance, health and safety, etc. All are very well-meaning, but every new requirement and overhead comes at a compliance cost.

Even in large organisations, there are many small things that individually fall into the category of not being very difficult but aggregated all increase administration costs, both for companies and government.

In the future, it will be quite a challenge to avoid getting 35 qualifying years for someone who has lived in the UK their entire life. They have 50 years to achieve it, with benefits and - particularly Child Benefit for under 12s - qualifying. Add this to credits for full-time training, foster carers, caring for disabled person for 20+ hours per week, credits for grandparents, etc, and it is quite a challenge not to get those 35 years one way or another. Plus there are always voluntary credits available. 

I wonder what type of person would be volunteering yet not going to reach 35 qualifying years. I suspect it would be a person from a well-off household who spent most of their life managing a household whilst their spouse worked. I have no data on this, just based on past knowledge of Basic State Pension, where most men managed 44+ qualifying years whereas many women did reach 39. 

So taking into account the limited benefits of the policy, the additional compliance requirements it would impose on HMRC and charities, and the likely scale and demographic profile of the beneficiaries, I doubt it would be a policy priority.

SouthCoastBoy

I'm surprised it's only 35 years, seems too generous to me. I think 40 years would be more appropriate