National Insurance

The leaflet NI38 covers the subject of National Insurance and going abroad. The bit that seems relevant to voluntary work is on page 18. "Volunteer Development Workers"

To quote:

If you are sent to work abroad in a developing country by a registered charity, you may be able to choose to pay (Volunteer Development Workers Class 2) at the special Class 2 rate for Volunteer Development Workers NI contributions.

These NI contributions may help you satisfy the contributions conditions for Contributions Based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Incapacity and Maternity Benefit and give you cover for industrial injury or disablement suffered during your employment abroad when you return to the UK.

You may pay Volunteer Development Class 2 NI contributions if:
• you are ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK (see page 11 for what this means), and
• your recruiting organisation is approved for these purposes by the Board of the Inland Revenue, and
• the country where you are working is recognised as a developing country by the Board of the Inland Revenue.

The organisation that recruited you will know whether the last two conditions are satisfied.

I'll need to check with AIM

Update 18/8/8:

A couple of months later I received a letter saying that the rules for state pension have changed and you now only need 30 years contributions as I already have 29 qualifying years I've decided I don't need to bother!

The other thing the letter said was that you had to be employed by the voluntary organisation to be eligible for Voluntary Developement Workers contribution rates so I would probably have had to do voluntary Class 3 contributions as I'm not officially employed by AIM!