Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

1. Under Freedom of Information Act can I request information regarding how many instances of issues with applying the 24 hr break for your members arose in the last three years?

2. What does NHS Pensions do to rectify these issues once they arose?

3. How many of the members whom had identified problems with their employers applying 24 hr break in their employment have been given discretion under your complaints procedures in the last 3 years?

4. Is the checklist, Annex 2 - 1 A that was completed on 26.07.2022 in my case, designed to help NHS Pensions to ensure the 24 hr break has been applied properly?

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 29 April 2024.

We asked for clarification regarding this request on 9 July 2024 for the following:

All questions – please can you confirm if you need the information in financial years 1 April 2021 to 1 April 2024, or calendar years 1 January 2021 to 1 January 2024?

Q1. Please could you clarify the ‘issues’ you are referring to?

Q2. Please be advised that this question is asking for an explanation rather than a request for information and therefore, falls outside of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, we can confirm that if there is no 24-hour break, the member record would be “active”. This would mean that an AW8 application for retirement benefits would be rejected and any changes post submission would lead to the award being cancelled.

Q3. The requirement of the regulations is to have a 24-hour break. Please could you define “identified problems with their employers applying 24-hour break”?

Q4. Likewise, with Q2, this question is asking for an explanation rather than a request for information and therefore, falls outside of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, I can confirm that the 24-hour break requirement is outlined in Part 7 of the AW8 form: - NHS Pensions retirement benefits claim form (AW8) (nhsbsa.nhs.uk) Part 7 Employment details:

If you are claiming benefits from the 1995 Section you normally have to have stopped working in the NHS for at least 24 hours before you can become entitled to receive them. If you are claiming benefits from the 1995 Section, 2008 Section or 2015 Scheme you must have a 24 hour break from all NHS employment before pension benefits can be claimed, regardless of the amount of hours worked. An exception is where you are drawing down some of your 2008/2015 benefits. In these cases it is not necessary to have stopped working in the NHS for at least 24 hours before becoming entitled to receive your 2008 Section or 2015 Scheme benefits. In the 2008 Section and 2015 Scheme you must have a 24 hour break from all NHS employment before pension benefits can be claimed, regardless of the amount of hours worked.’

It is the responsibility of the employer to ensure the 24-hour break is applied.

You responded on 8 September 2024 with the following:

All questions - could I ask for the information in financial years 1 April 2021 to 1 April 2024.

Question 1: How many complaints, at any complaints stage, were submitted to NHS Pension that included the issue of 24 hr break not being applied properly?

Question 2: How many instances during the period in question was the 24 hr break applied to members records or changed retrospectively by NHS Pensions? Can you give me some examples of the circumstances surrounding that retrospective change?

Question 3: By 'identified problems' I meant instances when it is proven that the employer made a mistake in applying member's data (by employer's own admission), including the lack of 24 hr break in employment.

Question 4: Who is responsible for completing the checklist, Annex 2 - 1 A, that was completed in my case on the 26.07.2022? I understand if the name of the individual completing it cannot be given, however I believe I have the right to know if this checklist was completed by NHS Pension's employee and what was it based on (can you confirm this is done in cooperation with member's employer)

Additional questions:

Question 5: How many complaints regarding 24 hr break not being applied properly ended up being considered by The Pension Ombudsman?

Question 6: How many complaints regarding NHS Pensions decisions were considered by Pension Ombudsman in the period in question?

Question 7: How many times during the period in question members were successful in overturning NHS Pensions decision as a result of Pension Ombudsman intervention?

Question 8: how many cases of discretion were used by NHS Pensions and applied to the members to be able to keep their pension if it was proven their employer did not apply 24 hr break properly?

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

Our response

Question 1 to 3 and 5 to 8

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 cost limit under section 12 of the FOIA.  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.      Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request: 

To manually interrogate the complaints files, ombudsmen figures and AW8 files on average would take between 10 and 15 minutes per file. Between 1 April2021 and 31 March2024:

• 2,983 informal complaints received

• 4,415 formal complaints, raised via Stage 1 of the Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure received. Information regarding the complaints procedure can be found on our website: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/member-hub/contact-nhs-pensions-members

• 59 ombudsman opinions received

• 22 ombudsman determinations received

• 137,200 AW8s logged for 125,454 members

This would total 1,446,790 minutes, or 24,113 hours.

Under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the NHSBSA is not obliged to comply with this part of your request and I am writing to advise that we will not be processing this part of your request further.

Question 4

An NHS Pensions administrator, employed by the NHSBSA.

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-02021

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data. 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.