Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘Q1. In the last three financial years, what is the number of non ill health related NHS pensions that have been flagged as being overpaid?

Q2. And what is that as a percentage of new pensions paid out?

Q3. What proportion of those overpayments are paid without challenge?

Q4. For those which are challenged, what percentage are upheld?

Q5. Is it documented that there are cases of the request for overpayment being incorrect?

Q6. What, if any, are the local policies for dealing with queries from people in receipt of a pension who have allegedly been overpaid?

Q7. Has the issue of overpayment, particular related to people paid by NWSSP, been discussed at any minuted meetings, and if it has are the minutes of those meetings available?’

[On 26 June 2024 we sent you the following clarification request]

For Q2, can you please confirm if you would like this as a volume percentage or value percentage?

For Q3 and Q4, in order to process your request, we would require clarification as to what you mean by challenge, specifically, what aspect of the overpayment is being challenged. You will also need to clarify if by NHS Pensions you are referring to all overpayments identified and managed by NHS Pensions (including for example, death related overpayments), or just overpayment specifically relating to payment of a pension.

Please be advised that in any case, it is unlikely that we would be able to provide this information as under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, as it would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours as providing the information would require manual interrogation of all cases identified in Q1.

For Q7, the requested information is not held by the NHSBSA, we would advise you contact NWSSP to see if they hold this information.

[On 26 June 2024 you provided the following clarifications]

‘[Q2] I don’t understand what you are asking - by value, do you mean financial? I would like to know the percentage of newly paid out pensions which are subsequently flagged as ‘overpaid’ and where money is requested to be returned. I don’t feel this is a complex request. If I am missing something here, please would you give me a call, or explain what you mean more clearly?

[Q3 & Q4] What I mean by challenge is - any person who does not simply pay the amount without question, but asks for more information or believes the decision is wrong and refuses to pay. I get the idea from the cases which are available on the ombudsman’s site that it may be more common with death-related payments, so I will stick with live, non ill health, standard pensions.

I am alarmed, as I am by all of my contacts with NHSBSA related to this matter, that there doesn’t seem to be any overview of statistics related to this matter. I suggest that they may already be available.

[Q7] NWSSP state that they have raised this matter at a senior level with NHSBSA , so there must be correspondence or minutes related to this on file at NHSBSA - surely serious concerns from a partner organisation won’t have just been ignored?’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 6 June 2024, with clarification received on 26 June 2024.

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

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds some of the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

An overpayment can happen for various reasons.  For example, any change to dates or pay after the first pension award has been paid is likely to result in a revised award and a subsequent over or under payment.  When we identify an overpayment we contact the member to arrange recovery.

Members may have had multiple separate overpayments which may have been part of the same or a different benefit claim (as multiple benefits can be claimed with the same pension application). To prevent double counting, the information has been provided at a unique member level, rather than a benefit level.

Members with an ill health pension have been excluded. Any overpayments not relating to the pension being revised have been excluded (i.e. relating to death, GMP etc.)

Questions 1 and 2

A copy of the data is attached.

Questions 3 and 4

We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information.

To determine if an overpayment had been challenged, and if the challenge had been upheld, would require manual interrogation of the 15,648 records with an overpayment. We estimate that this would take 10 minutes per record.

15,648 records x 10 minutes = 2,608 hours

Question 5

We can confirm, that as of 31 March 2024, out of the 15,648 members who received an overpayment between 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2024. 585 of those members have either had the original request for repayment cancelled in full, reduced in part, or the amount requested has increased.

Question 6

The NHSBSA adhere to a number of internal policies when collecting overpaid sums. The NHSBSA Debt Management Strategy outlines our approach to effective debt management and the responsible stewardship of public funds, and related policies include:

NHSBSA Financial Operations Vulnerability Policy

NHSBSA Financial Operations Managing Hard to Collect Debt Policy

NHSBSA Financial Operations Debt Management Strategy 2023-2026 Implementation Plan

NHSBSA Customer Charter

Government Debt Respite Scheme

Question 7

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority.

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.