Sammi T

Hi everyone, well I haven't been on here for some time, ten years, wow. We are still here in Australia, near Brisbane in QLD, still loving it here, its amazing. Our son is in the middle of his visa drama, fingers are all crossed for him. We are in the middle of building our own house now on 2 acres so all very exciting.

My question today is how to find out our UK pension forecast? Does anyone know the best way to get this?
We have tried logging into gateway.gov.uk but it's been too long so no luck there.
We have tied online but do not have the necessary reference numbers etc. so no luck there either.
They want a number of documents we just don't have all of them now.
We tried calling also and went around in circles.
All very typical for anything you want to find out these days.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Stay safe, enjoy life and have fun

BuckinghamshireBoy

Hi Sammi T,

The key to unlocking this (gov.uk + pensions) is to be able to present them with your NI number.

Do you have that?

Sammi T

Thanks for replying BuckinghamsireBoy.
Yes we have our NI numbers however they also want a passport and other docs, like pp60, utility bills etc.
I have my passport but hubby's expired and he is having trouble renewing due to postage issues etc.
We called the overseas number but that went through to claiming your pension and they couldn't recommend or forward us to anyone for the forecast.

Sammi T

Where abouts in Bucks are you from?

BuckinghamshireBoy

Given that you're currently living upside down, I'll reply in reverse order.

I hail from the Chalfonts, but not all of them simultaneously.

Unless they (gov.uk) have changed stuff very recently, you can use your NI to create a government gateway account, which should give visibility on a whole bunch of stuff.

I jumped through all of these hoops a couple of years back, got my forecasts online, decided not to increase voluntary top-ups etc, and 9 months or so ago applied for my pension by telephone, no documents required to be sent in.

It worked, I'm now in receipt of my UK pension.

Did you do the IR85 (or P85) thing when you left blighty?

Sammi T

haha that's a good one, love the humour
Yes, we did try and create a new government gateway but they want more than just NI now.
I can't remember if we did do the IR85/P85, there was a huge amount of documentation for getting our Oz PR visa and then citizenship, the memory from that form 10 years ago is not great :P
I will check this out, thanks.

BuckinghamshireBoy

De nada.

Good luck with this, drop me a PM if you get stuck.

Sammi T

macliam

Hi, I sympathise with your issues trying to get anything sensible from UK Government agencies from abroad (it's hard enough doing it from within the UK!)

I had the bad experienc of trying to speak with the DVLA when in Portugal, as well as trying to keep up with my cancer reviews, etc. Luckily, I was in the UK when time came for me to press the button for my pension and at that time it was mainly the NHS numner that was required - but anyone trying to download a vaccine passport will know how anal the agencies have become about proof of identity, so I am quite willing to beloieve that they have upped the ante on access to the pension portal as well.

The second issue that will frustrate you (and already has) is a seeming inability for them to think outside the box when setting these requirements. For example, the DVLA wanted the log book number of the vehicle involved (which, believe it or not was in the UK), without that there seemed to be no process apart from calling their callcentre on a UK non-geographic number (payable from outside the UK, of course). Given the presumption that such calls are "free", plus Covid impact, there is no rush to answer calls or even to let you know where you are in the "queue" and email contact meets with standard replies pushing you back to the callcentre - I sense you may have been there and got the t-shirt!

In all this I sense a kind of 80-20 rule, where any process is only aimed at the 80% and the others can go hang..... because there is no real fallback position. In the end I gave up (for now), but your case is different. All I can suggest is that you email directly the minister(s) involved, (Therese Coffey, Guy Opperman, even Priti Patel), copying the emails to your own friendly local representative. Someone can force an underling to actually take responsibility for solving your issues and (hopefully) amend the current process so it doesn't happen again. If you don't get an answer, it's time to escalate locally and copy your original emails to the shadow ministers, because there are a lot of people like you.

Good luck.

Sammi T

Hi macliam,

Thank you for your reply.
Yes all very frustrating.
Positive is we are not at retirement age yet, we just want a forecast, as we worked in UK from leaving school to 42 and 45 years old, to see where we are at financially so we can plan.
I will keep the roundabout going until we get somewhere.

Thanks again

Tedwardzero

Hi Sammi T.
I have been having a similar problem. I'm unable to provide a UK address as part of the identity confirmation check since I haven't lived in the UK for 40 years. Hoped to save on phone charges by using the (beta) WebChat on GOV.uk, but that was no help. I did have success in calling the Future Pensions phone number (44 191 218 3600) and - not being kept on hold for long - got answers to my pension questions.

If anyone can steer me towards where on the website there is information on specifically for expats registering for the government gateway it would be appreciated. I'm finding nothing for expats.

BuckinghamshireBoy

Looks like gov.uk have moved the goalposts (again).

Have a look at this page, see if anything takes your fancy. If so, click on the green "Start now" thing.

https://www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account

They are making it even harder ...

Sammi T

Thank you Tedwardzero, I will try calling the number you noted.

Good luck with your efforts

Sammi T

Thanks Bucks boy, I tried the link, takes you through the same process as before

Thanks for trying though.

BuckinghamshireBoy

Ok, that would mean that the process has changed since I applied for the gateway id, which would have been around 4 years ago.