Transfer of Child Benefit NI credits to grandparent to improve grandparent's state pension

[ExOptimist]

I have only just discovered this highly beneficial piece of legislation when looking at my pension situation.

I'm Grandma in my early sixties, a few years off state retirement age, already receive a private pension. For various reasons I do not, and won't have, 35 years of NI to enable me to get the full state pension.

However, there's a way of boosting your eligible years if you have done childcare for your grandchild( under 12 years old) in any periods since 2011. If the child's parent claims Child Benefit and pays NI through working they in effect have double NI credits. For any periods you have cared for your grandchild, with mutual agreement, you can claim to have the "spare" NI credits from their child benefit transferred to you, thereby increasing your eligible years for state pension. There is no minimum amount of caring, you just have to state that you did it.

Claims can be backdated to 2011. My claim will mean that I'll get 9 extra years added to my eligible pension years, which is going to give me hundreds of pounds more in state pension every month than I would otherwise receive.

All you need to do is fill in the relevant form on gov.uk and you and the child benefit recipient both sign.

I wasn't aware of this until last week so there may be other grandparents in a similar situation who could benefit.

Not the case at all.

When you fill in the form no questions are asked whatsoever about any specifics regarding days, hours etc of the grandparent caring for the child.

It simply asks you for the period for which you are claiming, so on mine I put 6 April of year X as the start of the claim and 5 April of the year 9 years later as the end. That's all you need to do.

In the overall scheme of things the opportunity for fraud must be practically non-existant. There has to be an actual child, actual child benefit paid, a grandparent who has insufficient NI contributions for state pension and the parent has to sign to give away their child benefit NI credits.

I can't see where the opportunity to defraud could arise. I suppose an unscrupulous grandparent who was not in contact with their child or grandchild could fill in the form and forge the parent's signature, but they'd have to know their NI number, but it wouldn't work because after the claim has been successful HMRC write both to the claimant and also the person who has given up their child benefit NI contributions, so it would be discovered. I can't think of other scenarios where fraud could be committed.

I suppose a grandparent and parent could collude to claim the grandparent had done childcare when they hadn't, but that would seem very unlikely indeed, as in that case the parent would have had to have been using other childcare exclusively and the grandparent would not have been working( so insufficient NI) so surely would have done at least some regular care, even a small amount.

I know lots of people in that situation. Lots of grandparents do not want to provide regular childcare beyond a babysit two or three times a year, and lots of working parents choose formal childcare over grandparents because they need reliable care 48 weeks a year.

I did this for my mum. It was super easy (unlike many government processes!). She had worked part time when we were little and hadn't built enough credits in a couple of those years. By transferring some of my excess credits she managed to fill in the gaps that had happened over those years. She looks after my children when I'm at work. I was happy to be able to help.

As most people are pretty honest I think the number of people in that situation colluding to commit fraud would be low, even if a few decide to take the risk. Especially as the person giving the credits gets no financial benefit whatsoever.