NI Numbers- will a temporary one be sufficient for a claim.

Client is an A8 national who seems to have a been given a temporary NI number and has been working/paying tax etc in the UK for the last ten years and I imagine that any award of ESA would be contributory

He has recently made claims for ESA and DLA after a stroke prevented him from working and payment of the ESA has been held up while a decision is made about his NI Number. This is likely to take between four and six weeks and my client understands that he will not be paid until the Nino question is resolved.

I cannot see any distinction made between a temporary and permanent NI number in s.IB of the SS Admin Act, all it says is that a claimant should provide one and some evidence that it is theirs. 

I can’t find any reference to NI numbers at all in the Claims and Payment regs so am I right in thinking that they should be paying ESA on the strength of the temporary NINo?

There is one thing that does concern me is that my client does not seem to have taken any steps to get a permanent NIno in the last 10 years but I can’t see anything in the handbook that says how a temporay Nino is transformed into a permanent one.

I don’t do a lot of ‘immigration’ type cases so any thoughts or advice would be gratefully recieved

Pete

A temporary NI number is made up of the letters TN (to indicate that it is a temporary number), the date of birth in the DDMMYY format to replicate the 6 numbers in ordinary NI numbers and the letter M for males and F for females - the idea is that any NI contributions that are paid can be attributed to the correct account.

From my experience no benefit will be paid until a NINO is allocated even though the requirement is that a number is quoted or,
information provided to trace one or,
the claimant takes steps for one to be allocated to them.

Your client should urgently contact JC+ for NINO allocation.

Shabir

I am not sure how tax and NI are paid to HMRC on a temp number as there could be many people with the same number

WB-room

You are correct that there are probably lots of people with the same date of birth - however, the name and gender together with the date of birth should result in a small number of people - this is only for those who don’t have a permanent number.

Shabir