Impact assessment

Find my National Insurance Number (NINO) service - screening equality impact assessment

Published 5 October 2023

Project objectives

The ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service builds on the ‘Store my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service which was introduced in May 2023.  The service will be accessible via an individual’s Personal Tax Account (PTA) and HMRC App.

The ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service will achieve the business objective of helping people to find their National Insurance Number securely and enables individual users to:

• view their National Insurance Number on the screen
• generate a copy of the fully accessible PDF version of the National Insurance Number letter
• store a copy of the National Insurance Number letter in their chosen device via a digital app wallet (Google Wallet or Apple Wallet) built under Store my National Insurance Number (NINO)
• store their National Insurance Number securely in an app wallet of their choice for Android and Apple to enable access to National Insurance Number in the future without signing into their digital account, built under ‘Store my National Insurance Number (NINO)’

Customer benefits will include: 

• an enhanced user experience
• a streamlined process to find details of an individuals’ National Insurance Number.
• the safe and secure retrieval of National Insurance Number which can be stored for future use
• quicker access to a National Insurance Number
• increased confidence in the accuracy and security of their information
• improved Juvenile Registration process, providing more customers with their National Insurance Number

Customer groups affected

• potentially everyone with a live National Insurance Number: 83 million
• PTA/HMRC existing users: 24 million (estimated)
• people allocated a new National Insurance Number each year either via Department for Work and Pensions or HMRC: 1.6 million
• people who contact HMRC by phone for confirmation of their National Insurance Number (estimated this is calls not individual people): 519,000
• people who contact HMRC by webchat for confirmation of their National Insurance Number (estimated this is calls not individual people): 53,000

What customers will need to do

What customers need to do as a result of the change

Access to ‘Find My National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service will be via a signed in authenticated journey using government gateway and, in the future, GOV.UK one log in.  

Users will need to be matched to a record in HMRC.

The service will be available to users via desktop and the HMRC App and will be available for Welsh language users.

How customers will access this service.

Users will access the ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service from GOV.UK or from the HMRC App.

They will sign into their PTA using a Government Gateway user ID and password.

Once signed into their PTA, the customer will have immediate access to the ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service.

The service will be integrated with ‘Store my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service that is already live.  

When customers need to do this

‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ is not a mandated service. Further communications will be available when a definitive timeframe is available.

Assessing the impact

We assessed the impact on those in protected characteristic groups in line with the Equality Act and Public Sector Equality Duty and section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act:

• sex
• gender reassignment
• sexual orientation
• pregnancy and maternity
• marriage and civil partnership
• political opinion (in Northern Ireland only)
• racial groups

There is no evidence to suggest any specific impacts on those customers within any of these protected characteristic groups.

Potential impact were identified on the groups listed below.

Disabled

Impact on customers

Minor: some disabled customers or customers who need extra help may not be able to use the new service. 

Proposed mitigation

We will develop accessible digital services and provide support to those customers that need help to interact with us digitally. ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service will meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Accessibility testing will be complete prior to releasing into a live environment.

Customers can still choose to contact us by telephone and to request paper forms and outputs.

Additional support includes telephony support from the Business and Usual (BAU) helplines and the extra support team if required, face to face visits, accessible online content including recorded webinars, tutorial YouTube videos and GOV.UK guidance and help pages.

As ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ is accessible via the PTA this will include the Trusted Helper service.

Age

Impact on customers

Minor: we expect positive impacts for people in younger age groups.

27% of Assisted Digital customers and 87% of Digitally Excluded Customers average 65+ years old. We therefore expect the desire of these customers to adopt a new system will be low.   

Proposed mitigation

HMRC will continue to provide additional support for those customers that need it. Customers can also still choose to contact us by telephone and to request paper forms and outputs.  

Young people will continue to receive their National Insurance Number letter at the age of 15 years and 9 months old.  

It is envisaged that one log in for government will improve the ability for users with low digital footprint to access government services in the future and thus more users will be able to access ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service in the future. 

Religion or belief

Impact on customers

Minor: some religious groups follow rules related to computer use that may affect access to digital services. 

Proposed mitigation

Digital services will operate 24/7 and so these customers will be able to decide when they want to engage with HMRC.

Other channels, such as phone and paper, remain available for HMRC customers to use. 

People with dependants (carers)

Minor: assisted digital and digitally excluded customers tend to seek support from family/friends rather than paid agents.   

Proposed mitigation

HMRC will develop ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service as an accessible digital service and will provide support for all customers who need help to communicate with us digitally.  

As ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service is accessible via the PTA this will include the Trusted Helper service, which enables customers to ask family or friends to represent them and talk to HMRC on their behalf and support from tax charities.  

People who use different languages (including Welsh Language and British Sign Language)

Impact on customers

Minor.

Proposed mitigation

This service will be provided in Welsh.

Opportunities to promote equalities

We have considered opportunities to promote equalities and good relations between people in each of the protected characteristic groups and those outside of that group.

We will evaluate the effectiveness of our targeted communication campaign.

We are conscious that our user groups are wide ranging from children aged 15 years and 9 months to pensioners, and parents, and a one-size-fits-all approach is not conducive. 

We already established a lack of awareness around National Insurance from children, comparable to foreign nationals that are new to the UK and are applying for a National Insurance Number, especially compared to adults who have a history of taxation experience. 

The aim of the ‘Find my National Insurance Number (NINO)’ service and associated processes is to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible, and we are using external communications, webinars and YouTube to raise awareness.

A full equality impact assessment is recommended.