1,000 Gov employees wrongly accused of not paying Social Security

Wednesday 31 August 2022

Around 1,000 Government employees were this week shocked to receive letters wrongly claiming that they hadn’t paid their Social Security contributions.

Sent by Customer and Local Services, the ‘ACT NOW’ letters said they have “no record of any earnings from employment for you, which means you have not paid Class 1 contributions”.

It went on to warn that "Social Security contributions are payments which must be paid by law and contribute towards benefits you may need in the future, including incapacity benefits and pensions" and urged recipients to get in touch promptly to "to discuss your options so that future benefits are not affected".

A Government spokesperson confirmed to Express this afternoon that the letters were "wrongly issued" to "around 1,000" employees "as a result of human error."

"Affected employees were notified of the error on the same day," they said.

The spokesperson added that steps had now been taken to avoid another similar blunder in future.

"A new check has been added to ensure that should such circumstances occur in future the problem will not be repeated," they said.