Thank you for your request for information about the following:

The following table appeared in an article in the Telegraph apparently based on an FOI from NHSBSA

1) Please provide a link to, or forward the original FOI response with the data which created this table

2) For each of the relevant tax years in the table, please provide the denominator, i.e. the number of pensioners in payment in the relevant tax year.

3) Concerning just the last row of the table (pensioners receiving an award of £100k and over in that tax year) please provide:

The raw data (1 award per line) for each of the wards outlining, with each tax year on a seperate sheet:

1) The tax year the original award was made

2) The amount of the original award in the original year it was awarded

3) The amount of the award in the year of payment in the tax year it was over £100k and hence in the table

4) Please provide the staff group the award was from i.e.

03 - Medical doctor 2 - Non-specialist

03 - Medical doctor 3 - Specialist

03 - Medical doctor 5 - Principal Practitioner

03 - Medical doctor 6 - Assistant Practitioner

03 - Medical doctor 9 - GP Locum or OTHER (NON MEDICAL)

5) The age in years of the award holder in the year they received the award >£100k

This request was subsequently clarified after the FOI referenced in Q1 was given as FOI-01133 (https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01133) and you stated you were happy to proceed with our suggestion below:

On the request for a breakdown of awards based on FOI-01133 data, we should clarify that it is not comparative of award data for awards put into payment and can’t be broken down in the way it has been requested. It is the pension rate in payment at the end of the financial year, which cannot be disaggregated to a single award line, as it may consist of multiple awards put into payment on different dates for different amounts.

We can provide the pension rate in payment for the staff groups detailed, and the age of the member in the specific year in question; this doesn’t mean that this is the year the rate took effect – it could be at any point in the past, out of scope for the data in question and/or potentially not continuous (i.e. their pension may have been over £100k, then under, then over again – the data is simply a snapshot of the pension rate in payment at the year-end in question). We can provide the tax year the earliest pension was put into payment, but that doesn’t mean it were over £100k at this point.

Your clarified request was received on 10 November 2023, and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

Question 1

The data and response to FOI-01133, as well as the relevant caveats, is available at: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01133

Question 2

A copy of the information is attached. This is an expanded version of the data provided under FOI-01133, which includes the total number of pensioners in payment in each year.

The expanded data includes additional categories which give a more granular level of detail. This has been provided to verify the accuracy of the figures.

Please note that FOI 01133 includes deceased members whereas FOI 01510 does not include deceased members.

Question 3

A copy of the information is attached. Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Caveats:

The data reflects only those members in receipt of benefits of 13 November 2023, it does not reflect all the benefits in payment in the respective year, as some of those benefits may have since ceased.

Not all members in receipt of benefits today, will have been in receipt of benefits in previous years. Only those with an annual rate on or over £100,000 are included.

The pension rate is based on what the rate in payment was for each member at the respective scheme year end (31/03). It does not necessarily mean the member received that amount of money for the previous 12 months or went on to receive it for the following 12 months, as rates can change throughout the year.

Employment Type has been determined by capacity code combinations defined by the requester, which are provided by the employer when setting up a new pensionable employment. They may not correlate directly with common groupings such as ‘Consultant,’ and do not reflect job titles.

Age provided is based at the year-end in which the pension rate has been assessed.

Year of Earliest Payable date is based on financial year of the payable date of the members earliest award (in the event of multiple payable dates).

A unique identifier has been provided for each row – this will be different for every row and does not correlate across different tabs provided.

Definitions:

Type of Pensioner:

• NHS Pensioner - A member in receipt of benefits based on their own accrued service or contributions

• Pension Credit Member – A member in receipt of benefits due to a Pension Sharing Order (PSO).

• Adult Dependant – A member in receipt of survivor benefits (partner pension) due to being the spouse or civil partner of a deceased member

• Child Dependant - A member in receipt of a child’s pension (child allowance) due to being the child of a deceased member

Pension Rate – The annual amount of pension due to the member at a given point in time. This is subject to change at any point throughout the year.

The data provided in this FOI response counts all members of the NHS Pension scheme including those working in clinical and non-clinical roles.

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2023” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.