The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has clarified its guidance about the importance of providing National Insurance (NI) numbers with direct earnings attachment (DEA) payments.
Although it is not a legal requirement to provide the NI number when making a payment, it helps DWP to ensure it is allocating them to the correct accounts.
DWP will include the NI number of the employee who has to pay the DEA on all departmental letters sent to the employer. It is important that this is quoted on:
any correspondence sent to DWP in the payment/payee reference field if an online BACS payment for an individual employee is made on the back of a cheque if a cheque payment is made for an individual employee if you a card payment is made for an employee.