Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

‘Please provide the following information for the past three full financial years (2020/21; 2021/22; 2022/23; and 2023/24):

1. The total number of pension payout requests made by NHS Pension Scheme members;

2. The total number of pension requests paid out by NHS Pension Scheme members;

3. The total number of pension requests paid out within 30 days;

4. The total number of pension requests paid out after 30 days;

5. The shortest and longest amounts of time it took (in working days) for a pension to be paid out; and

6. The average time (in working days) for a pension request to be paid out, from when the case was logged through to the payout being completed. This should be for each month (e.g., January 2021, February 2021, March 2021).

If possible, please break this down by reasons for retirement (e.g., voluntary resignation, incapacity, etc).’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 21 May 2024.

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

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested, and a copy of the information is attached.

For questions 1, 2, 5 and 6 information is taken directly from our live database, to provide the most up to date information, as well as to provide the additional breakdowns by Award Type as requested.

For questions 1 and 2, please be advised that not all applications progress to completion. Some will be cancelled or not progressed, this could be due to various reasons e.g., the member isn't eligible to have their pension paid as requested.

For questions 3 and 4, information is taken from our finalised and published performance targets, to ensure consistency and accuracy with reporting. As this is static aggregated data, it is not possible to breakdown to an individual case level, and subsequently not possible to split by Award Type and therefore, the requested information is not held by Award Type. This data is extracted on a monthly basis, and manually assessed to determine if targets have been achieved. Due to the live nature of our database, as well as the existence of common data quality errors, there will be discrepancy between ‘Volume of Completed cases’ identified in question 2, and the ‘Volume of Cases assessed against targets’ used in question 3 and question 4.

The target for payment of pension benefits is “payment within 30 days from the latest of (a) the payable date, or (b) the date NHS Pensions receive all relevant information required for processing the benefit application”.

The request asks for ‘reason for retirement’, however this is not a piece of information we hold. Instead, we have broken the information down where possible by ‘Award Type’ – i.e., the type of benefit being applied for, Age, Actuarially Reduced Early Retirement, Ill Health and Redundancy.

The ‘pension requests’ information is held at an application level, and the Award Type given is only a high-level indicator of the primary benefit being requested. This is done to avoid inflating the volumes, as multiple benefits can be claimed concurrently with a single application, and it is possible multiple benefits, with different award types, were paid out with a single request.

For questions 5 and 6, people submit their Pension paperwork well in advance of their retirement. We ask people to submit 4 months in advance, but it is not unusual for people to submit their paperwork a year or more in advance. Your request states when the case is logged, and this is how we have responded. However, it is important to note this is not how we structure our workflows, we prioritise work based on when the pension is due to be paid.

When these cases are logged this also does not mean all the relevant paperwork and information has been received, it is just a measure of when the first contact relating to the person's pension was logged.

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” 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.