Request

I would like to make a freedom of information request to find out how many other fines have been issued to people who are in receipt of contribution based JSA, instead of income based JSA and then include this as part of a formal complaint.

Response

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.

When a dental form or a prescription is received, we check with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) if an exemption is confirmed and a data matching exercise is instigated.

If there is no valid exemption which is found through this exercise for that patient an enquiry letter is issued to the patient which invites them to contact us to confirm the exemption they have in place. We only receive a confirmed or not confirmed back from DWP to say whether a qualifying benefit is held. The DWP do not provide the specific benefit the individual is receiving. As a result, the information you requested is not held by the NHSBSA and we do not know of any organisation that would hold this.

The NHSBSA only hold NHS Dental information relating to income-based JSA and not contribution-based JSA. This is because contribution-based ESA is not a benefit that enables exemption from NHS Dental charges, whereas income-based ESA does. Therefore, there is no business need for the NHSBSA to hold information in relation to contribution based JSA.