A SCHOOL-leaver has been forced to turn down four offers of jobs and training because of delays in the issue of National Insurance numbers. Diane Bryan should have received her number months before her 16th birthday in August. But she is still waiting and the Benefits Agency has admitted it is their fault.

The delay has left Diane, of Sandpiper Close, Farnworth unable to take up offers of a Saturday job at Greggs bakery, a nursery nurse position or places on two training courses.

While many of her friends have started work a fed-up Diane, who has nine GCSEs, stays at home.

"It's not fair and it's not my fault," she said.

"At the weekend my friends who are working ask if I want to go out but I can't because I've got no money."

The former Harper Green School pupil has now stopped applying for a job - because employers cannot take her on until she has a National Insurance number.

Her mother Mrs Susan Stamp has contacted the Benefits Agency in Bolton regularly over the past few months.

She said: "I was told by someone at the agency that it a computer error and that it would be sorted.

"They keep telling us she will receive one - but Diane is still waiting. She is being treated very unfairly."

A spokesman for the Benefits Agency in Bolton said she could not comment on Diane's particular case.

However she said that, due to a Contributions Agency computer error, a number of young people across the country had not automatically received their numbers.

She said: "I would advise any young person, aged 16, who has not received their National Insurance number to contact the Benefits Agency.

"The number is a passport to benefits and is treated with the strictest security."

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