Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

1) What software do you use for your payroll, hr and finance solutions, how much annually do you spend on each, when does each contract expire?

2) Do you manage your payroll in-house or do you outsource it if so, who do you outsource it to?

3) How many people do you pay each month using your payroll solution?

4) How many pensioners do you pay using your payroll solution?

5) Do you use Microsoft power platform technologies such as Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents?

6) What is the employee count in your organisation?

7) Do you collaborate with other organisations in the delivery of HR & Payroll shared services? If so which organisation?

8) Do you work with any industry experts such as ATOS, KPMG, EY, Accenture etc?

9) Who in your organisation is the head of service for HR and Payroll software or services and what is their role?

If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16 obligations of the Act, as to how we can refine our request.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 22 March 2024

We requested clarification on 22 April 2024 with the below:

By pensioners, do you want us to only count members in receipt of their own accrued benefits, or also include those in recent of a pension credit award or dependant benefits?

Do you want to know how many are in payment as of today, or a different specific date, or count how many have been in payment between a date range?

Do you want us to include those who don’t receive an annual pension, but still will have been paid through payroll (i.e. those in receipt of a Trivial Commuted Lump Sum)

You responded with the following on 3 June 2024:

Our definition of pensioners is anybody of pension age being paid a pensions by your organisation. The timeframe we are interested in is the last fiscal year or the year ahead if possible.

Yes please can you include those who don’t receive and annual pension, but still will have been paid through payroll.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

1) Payroll and HR – Oracle eBusiness Suite, the contract expires 31 August 2025. The software is centrally procured on behalf of the NHS, by the NHSBSA, so no unique identifiable cost for the NHSBSA.

Finance – Integra Centros, this contract is on-going with annual ordering and right to terminate on notice. Cost: £105,000

2) The NHSBSA manage their payroll in house.

3) The total average number of people we pay each month is 5,310 for 2023/24

4) Between 06/04/2023 and 05/04/2024 NHS Pensions paid 1,193,550 members, including recipients of pension credits and dependant pensions. Additionally, 1,532 members received a lump sum due to Trivial Commutation, though this was in place of an annual pension.

Members may no longer be in payment today and may not have been in payment prior to 06/04/2023.

A small portion of these members may have payments suspended for some or all of the 2023/24 fiscal year but are still included in the volumes above due to being a pensioner in payment.

5) We use Power Automate, but not Power Virtual Agents.

6) The NHSBSA currently has 4539 staff.

7) The NHSBSA does collaborate with other organisations, please see below:

Health and Research Authority: HR Shared Services (HRSS)

NHS England: HRSS

Counter Fraud Authority: HRSS and Payroll

Graduate Management Training Scheme: HRSS and Payroll

Tees, Esk and Wear Valley: HRSS

Airedale: HRSS

Health Service Safety Investigations Body: HRSS

East Coast Hospital: HRSS

Kings College Hospital Interventional Facilities Management: Payroll

8) The NHSBSA does not work with any industry experts

9) Katie Wilkie – Head of HR Michael Curry – Head of Financial Operations

Publishing this response

Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01822

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

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.

Reusing the data and copyright

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 2024” 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.