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In its press release yesterday, PAYE for Employers: National Insurance Numbers without Suffixes, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has admitted to sending out a number of NINos without the "A", "B", "C" or "D" suffix at the end. Apparently this is occurring when:

• The employer sends an incorrect or no National Insurance Number as part of their Full Payment Submission under RTI, or
• The employer sends a NINo Verification Request

HMRC has suspended the issue of NINos until the situation has been resolved and has asked that employers populate the missing character field at the end using the space bar, and not leave the field blank or "try to guess" the correct letter.

Of course the National Insurance Number is not necessarily essential to a valid FPS return, so long as you have the correct home address details for the employee - see for instance HMRC's PAYE Manual at PAYE 55001