I was well ahead of the posse on buying back UK national insurance. I got my CF83 form in last year, got the assessed reply and transferred the additional payments in January.
When I rang shortly after that, I was told the additional payment was correct, had been received and noted, but the funds had not yet been assigned to my record. The person I spoke to said they would put through the request and I should ring back in two to three weeks to check that the additional payment and the years were now on my record.
When I rang back four weeks later, I was told by a helpful person, that, yes, the payment had been received, but actually they were so behind assigning payments to the relevant records that the predicted date of my record being updated was July 2026. They said they were updating and assigning records from more than a year ago.
Is there any danger I could lose out? I am obviously worried that the system might be totally overwhelmed by the new wave of enquiries now.
Mr D. O’D
You are not alone. The system really is creaking under the sheer weight of numbers.
Even if you just look at the Irish, that is not really surprising. Even though any woman born before April 5th 1953 is locked out and any man born before the same date in 1951 is also excluded, there are clearly tens of thousands of Irish people who went over to the UK for a number of years. Back in the early 1980s, recession pushed waves of young people abroad, many of them to the UK.
That is before you look at those from elsewhere in Europe and further afield in the same position.
Interest in the scheme has simply overwhelmed the UK pension and tax systems.
The original deadline for applications was April 5th, 2023 – two years ago. That was initially extended to July 31st the same year after a late rush of applications. When the same happened approaching the July deadline, the UK authorities announced the application window was being extended again to April 5th this year.
At that time, people were told that they would have had to have completed the process – that is, applied via that CF83 form you mention, been accepted and paid in full for any additional years of national insurance being purchased by the April 5th deadline. But it has become clear recently that the UK authorities are months behind in processing claims.
As people need to wait for feedback from a case worker to hear if they will be charged Class 2 – at £3.45 a week / £179.40 a year – or Class 3 at £17.45 a week / £907.40 a year, and, if necessary, appeal that decision, it has become inevitable that the deadline would not be met.
Recognising that, the UK government recently put out a notice that anyone struggling to get through to on phone lines to process their claims – which is pretty much everyone at this stage – would be seen as having met the bar for consideration of their claim if they complete an online form requesting a callback from Department of Work and Pension staff to discuss payment of voluntary national insurance.
The form is available here and simply asks for your name, phone number, date of birth and whether you like in the UK or abroad. You can clearly ignore the final question asking people in Wales whether they would like to speak to someone in Welsh.
In case of dispute, it would be a good idea to screenshot the completed form before hitting “Send Request” and keeping that screenshot safe with other documents you need to process a claim such as: your UK national insurance number; dates of when you worked in the UK; details of where you worked in the UK (especially when you started and finished your final job there and the address of that employer); your marital status, date of marriage and, if applicable, divorce; and your PRSI record which you can secure from the Department of Social Protection PRSI records department in Bundoran through MyWelfare.ie (if you have a verified GovID) or by post, phone call or email to their office there.
In cases like yours, where the money has already been paid, make sure you also keep the evidence of that payment to hand in that file just in case.
Brokers who have been facilitating application for people in Ireland say that, at this point, it is likely to be months before anyone hears back. We have come across many cases of readers waiting to hear back on information and of others, who have paid, waiting for confirmation that the years have been added to their record. In some cases, people already in receipt of pensions are waiting for their enhanced payments.
To be fair, the delays we had heard were more in the region of five or six months for a call back, but nothing quite as dramatic as you were told on your call. Still, with the inevitable last-minute rush, it’s reasonable to assume that the delays are growing all the time. And, of course, having been initially told to expect a call in weeks only to be disappointed, the person you were speaking to may simply have given a wide enough window to make sure you weren’t further upset.
You’ve paid the money due, so you are certainly going to benefit from the voluntary buyback scheme. You will not lose out. As long as you are not imminently approaching the age of 66 when payment of the UK state pension kicks in, there’s no great rush.
Quite what will happen those who have paid and are tipping over into retirement is unclear, but you would assume if their payments have been received then any pension will be backdated. We will wait and see.
You have to assume things will not get much worse, simply because the deadline is now just days away. Once that passes, we can expect the system to start catching up on itself.
Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to dominic.coyle@irishtimes.com with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
