The Lemon Fool

The DWP advised someone within a few years of state pension age not to pay top ups on his state pension via Class 3 NI contributions. The man has stopped working.

They advised he should wait six weeks while they do a manual forecast as the accuracy of the existing automated forecast is in question over periods when people have been contracted out.

At the moment the DWP and company pension schemes are synchronizing their data for the periods when workers have been contracted out and this exercise will not be complete until October 2018.

I have checked my own state pension forecast and my COPE amount is as accurate as I can calculate it but I had plenty SERPS and SSP pre April 2016 for this not to be an issue.

I know of one person who worked for the local council for 10 years until around 2010 contracted out all those years. The value of their COPE is in my opinion near 5 years but it may well be their old style pension at April 2016 had sufficient SERPS and SSP for the error if corrected to be within a pound or so of their existing state pension forecast.

As always the DWP have a disclaimer on the forecast documentation.

This is money has an article on it today.

It appears now that due to people buying voluntary Class 3 contributions that for whatever reason did not increase the persons state pension which resulted in bad press and embarrassment for the DWP.

There is now a team of more senior people in the DWP who council people on how many years they should buy and which particular years they should buy to increase their state pension as it is too complicated for the front line people who are answering the phone to provide this information.