John Murray

Is there a way to get the messages in Gov.UK updated in a more timely manner? I understand that there is a backlog in processing payments and updating the records and that it takes a lot of time to get these processed. Is there anyway to get the messages in the portal to help here? It would be really helpful to just record that £ XX.YY has been received on DD.MMM.YYYY and that it will be processed in the next X weeks. I believe that this can be done quickly and it will reduce the number of people clogging up the lines and wasting resources to just confirm that the payment has been received. I, for one, have made several calls just to confirm such payments and would have been happy to wait for the payment to be processed once I know it has been received.

My wife worked for over 10 years before taking time off with the children in their early pre-school years, then moved out of the UK and returned to full time work. She has recently applied to pay Voluntary Contributions for gaps in her NI Contributions and has been informed that she needs to pay class 3 which are significantly more expensive than the Class 2 contributions. Had she not taken time off to look after our pre-school children she would have been entitled to pay for Class 2 NI contributions for her UK Pension. My question is - is there a way to get this re-assessed as home care for children should not dis-advantaged like this?