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Paying voluntary National Insurance contributions - ridiculous processing time


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There's a deadline for paying additional NI contributions going back more than 6 years of 5 April 2025.  I started the application process online today thinking there'd be plenty of time.

 

I was therefore surprised to learn there is currently a 15 week backlog.   Assuming the backlog doesn't get longer (which it probably will), I can expect them to post out a reply on 24 January.  Add a couple of weeks for post from UK to Thailand, and then I'm getting very close to the deadline.

 

If anyone else is thinking of making such contributions, I suggest you do it a.s.a.p., and do it online.

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Not sure if this helps?

 

If you have made voluntary contributions in the past, then you should be able to by-pass the initial phrase by making a payment(s) using the same reference as before. Your 'new' contributions will then be credited to your account a couple of months later.

 

I've made 3 sets of payments like this over the past 5 or so years.

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On 10/9/2024 at 3:45 PM, Foxx said:

I was therefore surprised to learn there is currently a 15 week backlog. 

 

On 10/9/2024 at 8:51 PM, RayC said:

Not sure if this helps?

 

If you have made voluntary contributions in the past, then you should be able to by-pass the initial phrase by making a payment(s) using the same reference as before. Your 'new' contributions will then be credited to your account a couple of months later.

 

I've made 3 sets of payments like this over the past 5 or so years.

yes well I have made payments for more than the last 5 years and my payment made (and confirmed verbally as received) in May still hasn't been credited. Even though it was transferred to a case worker the latest estimate I got was that it could be February before it showed up online.......

That would only be more than 9 months..........

 

Seems to all be due to the relatively recent more public announcements of an extended period to be able to pay missing years which is a positive for many people.

 

Having been chasing consistently I have now just resigned myself to waiting. :mad: 

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2 hours ago, topt said:

 

yes well I have made payments for more than the last 5 years and my payment made (and confirmed verbally as received) in May still hasn't been credited. Even though it was transferred to a case worker the latest estimate I got was that it could be February before it showed up online.......

That would only be more than 9 months..........

 

Seems to all be due to the relatively recent more public announcements of an extended period to be able to pay missing years which is a positive for many people.

 

Having been chasing consistently I have now just resigned myself to waiting. :mad: 

 

Seems to be hit and miss with DWP. Some people - like me - have no problems whatsoever; others - like you - experience problems and delays. Luck of the draw, I guess🤷

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8 hours ago, RayC said:

 

Seems to be hit and miss with DWP. Some people - like me - have no problems whatsoever; others - like you - experience problems and delays. Luck of the draw, I guess🤷

Nothing to do with DWP - I did try and check with Future Pensions Centre as well. The payments and online portal all handled by HMRC.

 

Previous years took up to (once) 16 weeks but that was during Covid.............

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On 10/9/2024 at 3:45 PM, Foxx said:

there is currently a 15 week backlog

 

It now occurs to me just how ridiculous this backlog is.  The processing is simply looking at gaps, identifying the cost of filling each gap and working out the pension uplift from filling the gap.  This is the sort of thing that a computer could do in fractions of a second.  It could even be put online.  The Luddites at HMRC just don't care.

(It rather reminds me of how, when HMRC computerised tax returns, they didn't bother to include the pages for non-UK residents.  20 or so years later, those pages have still not been put online, despite how that would be most beneficial to expats, leading to a much slower, manual processing.)

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10 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Did 4 years by phone (3 calls) at the end of 2021, paid by bank transfer.

DWP said phone us up again in 2 weeks and we'll manually update your payments info.

So less than 3 weeks from start to finish.

Unless I am reading that wrong that was 3 years ago........so not really relevant to timescales happening (or not happening..) now.

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