Overview
- Officials say the fault is fixed for people reaching state pension age before April 2029, with forecasts for later retirees potentially still inaccurate.
- HMRC states no one’s actual state pension calculation has been changed despite misleading online forecasts.
- Those misled can make voluntary National Insurance top-ups, potentially back to 2006, with payments of up to about £907 per missing year and compensation considered where appropriate.
- The issue dates to the tool’s 2016 launch, was flagged in 2017, produced around 360,000 inaccurate forecasts by 2019, and drew sharp criticism from pensions experts over slow remediation.
- The error chiefly affected people previously contracted out of the additional state pension; the full new state pension requires 35 qualifying NI years and currently pays £230.25 a week.